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Cisitalia 370 - The streamlined Porsche that wasn't meant to be

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Created on October 7, 2022

Text:

Karl Ludvigsen (Übersetzung: Paul Krüger)

Photos:

Ludvigsen Partners

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Ludvigsen Partners

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This is what the Cisitalia 370 Mille Miglia might have looked like. The illustration by Steven Cavalieri clearly shows the conceptual relationship with the Berlin-Rome car combined with the later Porsche 356 face.

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The Cisitalia series models were formally based on Savonuzzi's Aerodinamica version. Here is the 202 Roadster Nuvolari, so named after Tazio Nuvolari took second place in the same model at the 1947 Mille Miglia.

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In the offices of Cisitalia in Turin on June 23, 1947, Erwin Komenda drew this room sketch for the four-seater 370, which carries its air-cooled engine behind the rear axle.

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This drawing (also by Komenda, dated June 16, 1947) shows the two-seater sports version with mid-engine. The top view shows the different body widths for locked and unlocked front wheels.

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This drawing shows the 370 "Mille Miglia" with the 90-degree V8. The very Beetle-like torsion bar suspension according to the Porsche patent is clearly visible

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The design of the air-cooled V8 is unusual in that the crankcase is split vertically like a boxer engine. The valve drive via finger followers can also be seen.

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The four camshafts were driven by two long and two short crankshafts. The gearwheel at the end of the crankshaft also drove the oil pump in addition to the two lower shafts.

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Here you can see the belt drive from the two inner camshafts to the cooling fan and, on the left, the possible alternative using a king shaft. You can also see the course of the intake manifold, in the middle of which a single twin carburetor was later to be enthroned.

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The longitudinal section through the V8 reveals the numerous holes through which the two crankcase halves were to be bolted together, as well as the connecting bolts above and below the main bearings of the crankshaft with 90-degree crankpin offset.

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Various sections through the transmission, which was to operate hydraulically sequentially and adopted the type 360 synchronizer mechanism. The gear wheels that bridge the height difference between the crankshaft and the transmission input shaft cannot be seen here.

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The air-cooled eight-cylinder boxer in transverse and longitudinal section. A typical Porsche detail is the bevel gear-driven alternator aligned with the fan wheel.

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The boxer was designed to be "square", meaning that the cylinder bore and piston stroke had the same dimensions; in this case 68 millimetres. The two-liter eight-cylinder engine was light enough to be installed behind the rear axle of the four-seater without hesitation.

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This drawing from January 27, 1948 by Wolfgang Eyb shows the complete drive unit. The transverse exhaust silencer and the reference to the direction of travel identify this as a variant for the four-seater.

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This model from the Porsche test department is the only three-dimensional shape that the Type 370 ever took on. Savonuzzi's idea of the tail fins as air fins is still clearly recognizable, albeit in a weakened form. The figure on the right is for size comparison.

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This illustration by Graphicar from Italy makes the Type 370 Mille Miglia look even sleeker. At the end of the 1940s, this design would have been far ahead of its time.

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At the rear in particular, the Graphicar design has a much smoother surface than the Porsche model. Here, the 370 looks almost like a symbiosis of the 356/1 and 901.

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The Cisitalia factory on Corso Peschiera in Turin

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The senior managers at Cisitalia: Piero Dusio, Carlo Dusio and Giovanni Savonuzzi (from left to right)

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Cisitalia 360 (1947) - body removed - picture taken around 1970

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Cisitalia 360 (1947) - lifted body from behind - picture taken around 1970

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Summary

While the Type 360 Formula 1 racing car developed by Porsche for Cisitalia is quite well known today and there is even an example in the Porsche Museum, the Type 370 sports car is almost forgotten. This is hardly surprising, as the streamlined car never made it past the stage of a few design drawings. This article tells the story of the creation and development of the Cisitalia 370 based on numerous technical documents from the Porsche design office.

This article contains the following chapters

A sculpture in streamlined dress
Contact with Porsche
Three times 370
Eight-cylinder boxer, air-cooled
Streamline and weight distribution
Air or water?
No Type 370 without Cisitalia

Estimated reading time: 11min

Preview (beginning of the article)

The industrialist and passionate car enthusiast Piero Dusio was one of the most colorful figures in the dark post-war years of the Italian car industry. Born in Piedmont on October 13, 1899, Dusio was soon drawn to its capital Turin. At the age of 27, he founded an oilcloth manufacturing company and expanded into the production of synthetic fabrics, with which he became the main supplier to the Italian army. The wealth he acquired in this way enabled Dusio to pursue his love of motorsport without financial worries. He began in 1929 with Maserati, also driving Siata in the meantime, and founded the Scuderia Torino in 1938, which he equipped with four of the 1.5-liter 6CM models from the three-pointed brand. In the same year, he took part in the Mille Miglia with an Alfa Romeo and finished in an excellent third place behind the Alfa Romeo works cars. Always one step ahead of his competitors, Dusio founded a mechanical engineering company in 1943, from which Cisitalia Automobili emerged in 1945.

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