At the 1952 Geneva Motorshow, Fiat stunned the gathered crowd with an all new car, developed especially for racing. Powered by a 2 litre V8 engine, the car was simply known as ‘8V’ or ‘Otto Vu’ in Italian. This to prevent problems with Ford, who, Fiat believed at the time, had claimed the V8 type-name. It was designed specifically to take on the two litre class, which was a highly contested class of the Italian championship. Fiat faced competition from Maserati, Ferrari and Lancia, who all had a two litre racer. Fiat’s V8 was derived from two four cylinder blocks mounted on a common crankcase. To keep the engine compact, the angle between the cylinder banks was just 70 degrees. A centrally mounted camshaft operated the valves by pushrods. Breathing through two Weber Carburetors, the engine was good for 105 bhp and with an extra Weber 115 bhp and eventually 127 bhp could be achieved. Fiat’s potent V8 proved to be a good match for Maserati’s straight six, Ferrari’s V12 and Lancia’s V6.
