A late 1963 1500 Ghia with a surprise in the trunk

Lee Hedges shared some pictures of this late 1963 1500 Ghia owned by Antonino Magnano of Udine, Italy. The car has only 70,000 miles and has been in Antonino's family since it was new. It's very rare to find such an original, unmodified example.




This photo of the rear trunk reveals something unexpected: the air intake warning decal that was used on earlier Ghias without the protective grilles. The grilles were introduced in May 1963 (0 183 839), and I've never been able to confirm that the decal was used after that date, until now. It's too insignificant a thing to have appeared in a parts book or production survey. This car has the decal positioned just above the grille on the far left side, while on earlier cars without the grilles the decals were positioned as shown below:



Antonio's car was produced in late June of 1963, very late in the 1963 model year, so it's possible that use of the decal extended into the 1964 model year as well. They may just have used them until their inventory ran out.



Thanks to Antonino for the photos of his beautiful car, and to Lee for giving me permission to post them here.