![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.doubledeclutch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/torino1587.jpg\" "\\"torino1587\\"")
<\/a>1908 Brixia-Z\u03cbst 10 h.p.<\/p><\/div>\n
Founder Robert Z\u03cbst, of Swiss origin, had a precision tool manufacturing plant at Intra on Lake Maggiore. At the turn of the century the company experimented with prototype cars and in 1905 the Z\u03cbst company was founded in Milan to make cars and commercial vehicles. Initially expensive large cars were produced but a branch was set up in Brescia to make lower-priced smaller cars under the name Brixia-Z\u03cbst \u2013 Brixia is the Latin for Brescia.<\/p>\n
This splendid example has a monobloc 3-cylinder engine of 1386 c.c. The company was taken over in 1917 by O.M. (Officine Meccaniche). Production of the bigger S305 was continued until O.M. introduced their own designs, one of which won the first Mille Miglia in 1927.<\/p>\n
<\/a>De Dion rear axle<\/p><\/div>\n
Here can be clearly seen the layout of the famous de Dion suspension arrangement mounted on one of the company\u2019s very popular runabouts. The de Dion tube is attached to the two rear uprights, helping to keep the wheels vertical (and thus more in contact with the ground) as the suspension rises and falls.<\/p>\n
The arrangement became universally popular on racing machines from the Thirties onwards and production cars occasionally adopted the design also e.g. the Rover 2000 (P6) and the Smart City car. Interestingly de Dion themselves abandoned it for their own production cars from 1911!<\/p>\n
<\/a>1925 Diatto Tipo 30<\/p><\/div>\n
Diatto was a carriage building firm dating from 1835 which gradually diversified into railway engineering and iron founding. Come the 20th century the company turned to cars and, during the First World War, aero engines including Bugatti\u2019s 8-cylinder under licence. In 1922 the Tipo 20 2-litre overhead camshaft 4-cylinder car was marketed and from this evolved the Tipo 30, one which finished 11th in the 1925 Le Mans 24-Hour race.<\/p>\n
Diatto built a number of Bugatti Brescia cars under licence and their straight-8 racing design was taken over by the Maserati brothers as the basis for their own Tipo 26.<\/p>\n
<\/a>1947 Cisitalia 202 SMM Nuvolari<\/p><\/div>\n
Piero Dusio made his fortune through his textile business which specialised in oil cloth, sporting goods and military uniforms. He was no mean racing driver either, having finished third in the 1938 Mille Miglia driving the previous year\u2019s winning Alfa Romeo. He set up the Corsorzio Industriale Sportiva Italia, Cisitalia, in 1944 to produce some exquisitely styled sporting coup\u00e9s and spyders with Pinin Farina bodies. They were the work of Dante Giacosa (father of the Fiat Topolino), Giovanni Savonuzzi and Piero Taruffi and were based on the 1100 Fiat o.h.v. 4-cylinder engine. There was a multi-tubular chassis of chrome-molybdenum tubing, transverse-leaf independent front suspension and a rigid rear axle on coil springs and quarter-elliptics which served as radius arms.<\/p>\n