Into the World stage:
The Cuter
What if I told you, that one of the most iconic cars of MTA was born thanks to an unsuccesful prototype?
I know, it looks like an oversimplification of events, so I’ll provide more ‘sense’ to this chapter of MTA’s story.
1960 was a challenging year for Torricelli and -as it was it’s name at that time- ITA. The government was promoting the development of the national automotive industry by allowing other companies to build their factories in the country. From small west-german brands to the north-american automotive giants, everyone was settling down in Argentina. Competition was growing strong in the country, and so Torricelli had to deal with it with novel vehicles.
Enter Mario Torricelli, Paolo’s son. He had been studying engineering at Italy since his father took him there during the militar coup in 1955. He came back to join his father’s company with some new ideas from the old continent.
Taking advantage of the national success that the Goleta had, he wanted the next generation of the car to be re-branded as a ‘small sport family sedan’, a vehicle that mixed the performance of a light sports car and the practicality of a small 4-door. To achive this novel mixture, Mario and a small group of engineers and designers built a prototype of what could be the Goleta II:
Mario’s ‘recipe for success’ included a completely redesigned chassis, improved suspension and brakes, and a brand new 2.2l flat-4 coupled with a 2-speed automatic gearbox. The engine itself was groundbraking for what was available at the time in the country making 82hp at 4400RPM and 142Nm at 3200RPM. With the car weighting 1100 kg, it was a decent contender even for some european light sports cars. The difference between the Goleta I and II was substantial… and that worried Paolo.
It was considerably more expensive and unreliable, to the point that the automatic transmission randomly dissengaged the selected gear. He saw the prototype as a step away from what he was trying to achieve with the Goleta, so he halted the development and instead went with a safer option: he kept the production of the first gen, adding in 1961 an estate variant called Gran Goleta.
It wasn’t all bad news for Mario though. His father put him in charge of a small team of engineers tasked with the development of a light sports car that would use the engine that he designed. Only one year later, in april 1962, the car was unveiled as the ITA Cuter:
‘So, what’s so good about this car?’ you may ask. Well, the engine was more or less the same that the one you just read of a few lines above, but it was now coupled with a 3-speed manual installed on a chassis 200kg lighter than the car originally designed for, with an almost-50/50 weight distribution, coupled with a 3-speed manual.
Needless to say, the car had some impressive stats for its time:
- 0-100km/h: 11secs
- Top speed: 166km/h
- Cd: 0.29
With its smooth looks, serious performance and relatively low price (the interior shared many components with the Goleta to reduce production costs) , the Cuter (although it’s kinda cute, the name stood for Cutter) caught the public’s eyes. However, these were not argentinian eyes, but english, french and italian. That’s right, this car got really popular among Europe’s gentlemen drivers. In fact, the demand for this car was so high that ITA sold 5500 more cars than the original 200 planned for production.
Even though the Goleta cemented the path for ITA’s growth in Argentina, it was the Cuter that made the company jump into the automotive world stage, and initiating what would be known as the golden era of ITA
I don’t use beam very much anymore though since it tends to crash my computer nowadays.