The Lancia Aurelia Mystery : What is it?

[Sebastien]

On the Postwar section of Prewarcar I posted a picture which appeared yesterday, of a Lancia car unknown to me, with a strange body.
http://www.prewarcar.com/postwarclassic/magazine/previous-features/the-lancia-aurelia-mystery-033270.html

The picture was found on an Aurelia CD supplied by Lukas Geheniau.

There have been no responses up to now, normally the readers answer quickly, so this must be a bit more difficult!

Excuse me for cross-posting it here, I am not particularly fond of the body, but I find it strange that identification is so difficult.

Is it really an Aurelia, or maybe an Aprilia, or, who knows, a rebodied Astura?

And who could be the bodybuilder? Boneschi perhaps, who has made some other american inspired bodies on Aurelias and a Flaminia?

[mikeC]

Coachbuilt.com identifies this car as a Boneschi Aprilia 'Pin-up-cab 48':

http://www.coachbuild.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=127&t=752&start=40

I don't know the significance of 'Pin-up', but 'cab' is presumably cabriolet, and '48' is 1948.

[Sebastien]

Mike,

Thank you! Great identification!

Pin-up is the right word for this very busty cabriolet!

The pictures of all those different Boneschi postwar bodies on the coachbuild Website are fascinating, sometimes frightening....

Would be interesting to better understand who the customers were then, and how much those bodies cost, additional to the Aprilia chassis price. It seems that the designs were built as one-off, contrary to Pinin Farina, who tried to build small series of 6 to 8 same cars.