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Monteverdi HAI 450 SS: The Swissman Who Challenged Enzo Ferrari
MONTEVERDI HAI 450 SS
THE SWISSMAN WHO CHALLENGED ENZO FERRARI
Edited by Richi Makie
How many times have we heard about visionary entrepreneurs who, dissatisfied of compromises, decided to enter the game and create a car on their own? It happened way too often, but not everyone has been able to challenge Commendator Enzo Ferrari and come out as victorious as Ferruccio Lamborghini did. These are stories full of passion and taking place in a time when all the current facilitations in terms of communication, partnership and engineering did not yet exist, everything was much more difficult. It was a world of pioneers and those who were ready to get their hands dirty in such a business, was immediately taken for lunatics. At the office, we decided to go exploring some rather special models, without necessarily being anchored to a specific era or who knows what other stake. The opportunity to have carte blanche and bring back to life – at least on paper – some cars that would have deserved more luck is an excellent opportunity to brush up that drawer of memories that has stored a large number of names, models and the shapes of the respective cars that for their creators have not only represented a period of their life, but the realization of their ultimate dream. This reason seems good enough to give them some space on our pages and I’m sure you would agree.
We are in Basel, a city located on the river Reno, just a few kilometers from where I live; it’s a place rich in history, art and tradition, but not everyone know that it was also the home of Peter Monteverdi, formerly official Ferrari importer for Switzerland and that at the end of the 60s, after repeatedly asking the Drake to send him better equipped cars, decided to start his own business and give birth to a car as he would have liked. At the 1967 Geneva Motor Show he unveiled the High Speed 375 S, but immediately later he decided to accomplish what would have been his most important goal, namely the creation of a sports car with the engine placed in mid-rear position.
The real challenge was represented by the movement of the engine, from front to the center position, because he chose to use the same structure of the first model, going to stow a big 6.974cc Chrysler V8. This is in fact the iconic Hemi 426 able to deliver 450hp at about 5000 revs. The only way to be able to put it inside the car was to place it as much as possible into the cabin and in fact, the heart of the Monteverdi HAI 450 SS was a few inches from the driver and passenger seats. The automatic transmission gave way to a five-speed ZF manual transmission, which also represented the ideal solution to accentuate the driver involvement, a key aspect for potential customers. The lines of its body, wide, low and tapered came out courtesy of Trevor Fiore, designer of the Italian coachbuilder Fissore in Savigliano, while the color chosen for the big reveal at the 1970 Geneva Motor Show was a showy magenta called “Purple Smoke”. On the other hand, if you are wondering what the name “Hai” means, it is just the German translation of the word “shark”.
Monteverdi succeeded in realizing his dream of creating a supercar with an extraordinary shape, with a powerful engine located exactly where he would have wanted it to be, all without giving up the comfort of a spacious cockpit with two soft leather seats or a reduced weight that was slightly over 1,200kg. The price tag was however challenging, especially if compared to the already successful competitors of the time – about $ 27,000 – and this led to abandon the project to produce 49 specimens. A second HAI 450 was built, but called GTS and with a longer wheelbase and some details that differentiated it from the SS. However, unlike the myriad of concept cars that just pave catwalks around the world nowadays, the Monteverdi was a perfectly marching sports car able to burn the 0-100 kph in 4.9 seconds, with a top speed of 295 per hour, which in the 70s made it one of the fastest cars on the road. Between 1992 and 1995, the last incarnation of Monteverdi, called HAI 650 F1, was built in only 3 units and entirely shaped around a Formula 1 single-seater. This time, once again, the expected success and dreams of the small Swiss builder company had to face a sad turn, just three years before the death of its own founder. What remains is a handful of beautiful cars that nevertheless reflect the vision of their creator and that thanks to the courage to get involved, allow us to remember him thanks to his “sharks” for the road. The only HAI 450 SS, the magenta one, was auctioned at Pebble Beach in 2012 for $ 577,500.
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