OSCA. The second life of the Maserati Brothers
The Rarest Brands in the Top 100 Collections
Photo credit: Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este, Lopresto Collection, Wheelsage
They started and ended their magnificent adventure as racing car manufacturers in Bologna, the capital of the region that to this day is a symbol of Italian motor racing. Over the course of 54 years as constructors, first under their own name, Maserati, then with the OSCA brand, they have always and deliberately insisted on making the same mistake: wanting to do things too well, and to the very highest levels of quality, subsequently incurring costs so high that they could never attain economic tranquillity.
The first brand they created, proudly represented by the Trident featured on the statue of Neptune that stands in the main square of Bologna, continues its journey today. Because of that mistake, however, they had to sell the brand and company in 1937 to the Orsi family. After the 10-year contractual period expired which required them to remain inside the company and provide design and technical guidance, they returned to Bologna to begin once again, setting up shop in the same warehouse in San Lazzaro di Savena on the outskirts of the city, where they built the Maserati brand in the pre-war period. As they couldn’t use their name, the new brand was called OSCA, an acronym of Officina Specializzato Costruzione Automobili which had the Maserati brothers as signatories.
Would that have been a problem? No, they were used to racing under different names: their 8TCF 3000 Compressor twice won what was then the most important race in the world, the Indianapolis 500, entered as a Boyle special. But the credit was theirs.
OSCA was created after the two brothers sensed the economic opportunity of a growing market in the post-war period: small sports cars – initially 1100cc and 1500cc models – that were very much in demand by gentleman drivers for road and hill races. Of course, this included track events, but the 1000 Miglia and Targa Florio were their first references.
The formula of the Maserati brothers was straightforward: simplicity, lightness and quality. Their four-cylinder engines had double overhead camshafts and were subsequently upgraded to 1600cc and 2000cc. It was this very engine, capable of producing 165 horsepower, that drove OSCA to its most impressive international victory in 1954: the 12 hours of Sebring, in the United States, driven by the champion, Stirling Moss.
Always very interesting and popular in the world of collecting are the road-going versions of the OSCA cars, “dressed” by the main Italian coachbuilders.
The romantic dream of the Maserati Brothers, now in the later stages of their lives, died out within twenty years. The world was changing and the spirit of the “garage” where everything was done under one roof had very little chance of surviving.
