Italy. The country where, according to most of the automotive afficionados and enthusiats, the most beautiful cars were and still are created. While the beauty is in the eye of the beholder it is hard to disagree that namely in Italy the cars are created with great passion and with performance as well as appearance taken into cosideration very seriously - probably like nowhere else. The postwar decades in this southern European country are maked with the birth of the cars that today are unquestionably the icons of sportscar - the most amazing, the most expensive automobiles of high performance. These unique Italian examples are the cars for which the most enthusiastic and the most richest collectors of the world are keen on spending their extra millions. No matter what decade it is - 50s, 60s or the recent ones - undoubtedly you'll find Italian cars among those considered to be the representatives of the era.

The spectrum of the Italian automobiles of the early 70s is adorned by the models of such low-volume and little known manufacturers like ATL, Intermeccanica, LMX, Lombardi/Otas, Serenissima, Siva or Thomassima. Each are worth of writing a separate story about them, but the car descibed below is much more obscure than any of those mentioned before. The car about which the details are limited to the few lines in only several sources is named Baldelli Murena.

This car which is known only for a few automotive anoraks was created not in the Continental Italy, but in Capo d'Orlando, Messina, Sicily. It was built by three Baldelli brothers - Angelo, Gianni and Giorgio and was publicly demonstrated at the International Motor Show in Turin in 1971. The car was a two-seater coupe featuring double headlamps, tubular sub-structure made of steel as well as a hand-formed aluminium bodywork. Every single part of the car was created by Baldellis with the greatest passion for cars, especially for sportscars and racing cars. The only "borrowed" parts were the engine and mechanicals. The Murena was powered by an Abarth engine and was planned for either 1300 or 1600 cc power units. The short story of this car ended soon since the enthusiastic Baldelli brothers were not able to get sufficient funds to put the car into production. However, the memories, the nostalgia and the endless passion for automobiles is what still unites Baldellis (it is sad to say that Mr. Giorgio Baldelli passed away few years ago).

Recently, we had a chance to get in touch with Mr. Angelo Baldelli and he has briefly described the Murena as follows:

"We built the Murena driven by passion we have for cars in general, especially sports and racing ones. We handbuilt it with the few means available. It was exhibited at the Salone Internazionale di Torino in 1971 as you know, but we could not find the necessary founds to build it in a small serie. We were very young. Tubular frame was high pressure steel built by a famous German brand, it was a very solid carrier cage frame. It was our invention, at least at that time we were not aware of such frames. The coating and all-aluminum interior and exterior was hand-shaped and realized with cardboard models, practically a tailored suit. We realized ourselves everything but mechanicals and accessories that were Fiat's. The engine as all the mechanicals came from an Abarth we've been given by a pilot friend of ours who was also a sport cars lover. Then I took it to Switzerland, where another pilot friend of mine, tested it and said it was very stiff, that the grip was very good and it looked like his F2 engaged in the Swiss Mountain championsh."

To be continued...

Note:

This article has been prepared with a great help of Francesco via autopuzzles.com and cannot be reproduced neither as a whole nor in parts.

Picture credits: autopuzzles.com and Mr. Angelo Baldelli.

Giorgio Baldelli (standing)