Brassed off

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Imagine it’s 1967; your company is titled Bridgeport Brass Company and you want to show the world the applications possible with copper and brass. What to do? Well, you could team up with the Copper Development Association to have an eye-cathing car commissioned, using more copper and brass plated bits then you’ll find in Glenn Miller’s band. It actually happened and this is that car – the Exemplar I, designed by Mario Revelli di Beaumont for Carrozzeria Coggiola. Italian, yes, while Bridgeport Brass was based in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

That meant the base vehicle had to be American, too, and a 1967 Buick Gran Sport chassis was chosen. Coggiola built a car around it, which oozes luxury in an American way. Its style is not unlike other Italo-American cooperations of its time; revived Stutzes and Duesenbergs mostly and the work of Virgil Exner in particular. Contrasting with the white paint job; brass and copper plated parts are everywhere. Under the bonnet you’ll find a polished and copper trimmed 360hp V8 of 430 cubic inches. There are copper disc brakes and brake lines, dual copper radiators and the electronic system the car uses is full of it, too. No less then 11 distinct hues in copper alloys were used throughout the car, or so is said - ‘From reddish orange of copper through the golds and browns of brass and bronze to the soft silver colors of the coppernickel and nickel silver alloys’.

Finished in late 1967, the car toured throughout the USA, of which the 1968 and 1969 New York Auto Show exhibit were just two venues. From 1970-on it was kept privately by Bridgeport Brass Company-boss Herman Steinkraus on his Connecticut estate. Only to be sold after his death in the late 1980s and taken over by the Dragones of Dragone Classic Motorcars. Fast forwards 25 years and they have now decided to part with it at their own Fall Auction next week (October 17). See it for sale in their catalogue here, which hides a lot more surprises.

(Words Jeroen Booij, pictures courtesy Dragone Auctions)

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