The hot hatch is one of the greatest categories of cars ever conceived. Take the practicality of a family hatch and combine it with the attributes of a sports car to get what some feel is the ultimate daily driver. We might have found the apex of hot hatches, one of the coolest hot hatches ever made. This 1983 Sbarro Super Eight is basically a Ferrari 308 GTB wearing a hatch body and it only gets better from there. Oh yeah, I forgot to say that it’s for sale right now!
This car was sent to our tips line by Urban Runabout with a joke about Sbarro Pizza. Despite the name and the car’s saucy paint, we’re not talking about the Sbarro that slings pizza pies in malls and truck stops. Instead, this is the work of one Franco Sbarro, the Italian designer known for some of the most bombastic cars to ever grace the world’s tarmac.
You can buy a whole pie of this Sbarro, too.
It’s being auctioned on Bring a Trailer right this moment with seven days to go. If you’re lucky enough to be the buyer, you’ll have what’s purported to be the only example ever built and perhaps the craziest hatch ever built this side of the Volkswagen Golf GTI W12-650.
Copy Nothing
Sbarro isn’t exactly a household name here in America, but his name is on some incredible machines you’ve almost certainly seen online before.
Francesco Zefferino Sbarro was born in 1939 in southern Italy right before the outbreak of World War II. Sbarro spent his childhood on the family farm while gaining an appreciation for vehicles. He got to witness how Italy rebuilt after the war and put its citizens on wheels through small cars and stylish scooters. It wasn’t long before these mechanical objects became his obsession.
Fast-forward to 1957 and Sbarro is 18 and living in Switzerland. He was never formally trained in automotive design or in engineering, but Sbarro cut his teeth in the industry by spinning wrenches as a mechanic. Sbarro would own his own garage as well as working with Borgward, and eventually, he’d catch the attention of Georges Filipinetti. Georges was impressed with Sbarro’s abilities and decided to make him the chief mechanic at the famed Scuderia Filipinetti. There, Sbarro got to work on such icons as the AC Cobra, the Ferrari P3, and the Ford GT40. It was here that Sbarro also took plans for a VW Karmann Ghia with a 1.6-liter engine and turned it into his first car built, the Filipinetti Coupé.
Something about that Filipinetti Coupé really drove Sbarro’s automotive obsession in a way that working on other people’s cars just couldn’t match. In 1968, Sbarro left the racing team and opened up his own shop, the Atelier de Construction Automobile, to let his imagination run wild. According to Car and Driver, Sbarro doesn’t see himself as a car designer or an engineer. Instead, Sbarro is a master in the old art of coachbuilding.
Some of Sbarro’s early work when he was running his own shop was the Dominique III sports car. But he also worked on existing cars, including converting race-spec Ford GT40s into road cars. This era also saw the rise of the replica car and the Neoclassical car and Sbarro was right there building replicas of the Bugatti Royale, the 1930s BMW 329, the Ferrari P4, the Lola T70, and the Mercedes-Benz 540K.
As Car and Driver noted in 2002, Sbarro’s business has always been a small one and how he advertised his work was by taking his custom cars to the Geneva motor show. Since 1972, Sbarro has rented a slice of the show floor to display some coachbuilt vehicles he made for customers. That was his marketing and it worked. Regardless if you were repulsed by his designs or madly in love, they got your attention. By 2002, Car and Driver writes, Sbarro had cranked out 110 unique car designs. Apparently, at the 2002 show Sbarro tried listing out his achievements thusly:
A fiberglass Bugatti Royale replica built to 7/8th-scale that’s powered by two Rover V-8s bolted together and housed under an aluminum box made to look like the original (late ’20s, early ’30s) Royale’s 12.7-liter in-line eight. A convertible minivan. A car riding on wheels that have no hubs. A modern Mercedes with gullwing doors. A roofless and doorless “hunting car” made of a once-handsome Rolls-Royce. The aforementioned enormous angry mosquito. And the six-wheel Function Car, which is half-’70s Cadillac Eldorado, half-van.
Sbarro’s creations span so far and so wide that if I attempted to explain even just the craziest ones you would be here all day. So, the imagery thus far has been just the wildest ones I could find online. I mean, just click here to find the staggeringly long list of cars he’s built or modified.
Perhaps the most impressive of all is that Sbarro is still kicking today, but don’t expect to find him posting shots on Instagram or hot takes on Facebook.
Stupid Quick Hot Hatches
In the 1980s, Sbarro got the idea to build the ultimate hatchback and out of this dream came two just insane cars.
In 1981, he experimented with this idea with the Super Twelve. This hatch rode on a tube frame, wore a fiberglass body, and housed in the middle was something really silly. Sbarro took two Kawasaki Z1300 six-cylinder motorcycle engines and connected them together, creating a compact 2.6-liter V12. Combining two motorcycle powertrains together meant that the car had two five-speed transmissions connected by a single shifter. The car also used a chain drive for locomotion. The end result was a car that weighed just 1,763 pounds but had 240 horses on deck. In other words, this was pretty much a city car Suzuki Hayabusa swap before that was a thing.
Apparently, the Super Twelve was so popular that Sbarro decided to build a sequel. This car would be a bit less absurd and more of a real, usable vehicle, but still as obscene as it could be. That’s the car we’re looking at today, the Super Eight.
This time around, Sbarro did not give the car a custom frame or a highly modified dual motorcycle engine setup. Instead, he started with a Ferrari 308 GT4 donor. The chassis of the Ferrari was shortened, but the underlying engine, transmission, brakes, and suspension was left stock. That means you’re getting a double wishbone independent suspension, anti-sway bars front and rear, plus disc brakes on all wheels. It’s said that building off of an existing car would have made it easier to put the Super Eight into production.
Under the fiberglass body, behind the seats, and attached to the shortened frame is a 2.9-liter transverse V8. Bring a Trailer says the engine is making 240 HP, but that’s what the 308 made here in America. Hagerty notes this car should make 260 HP, which is about on par with what a European 308 made. At any rate, that V8 is fed from Bosch fuel injection. That’s backed by a five-speed manual.
The great part about the Ferrari donor is that the Super Eight managed to be just as stupid fast as the Super Twelve and it even has a higher top speed, hitting 137 mph compared to the 125 mph the double Kawasaki Super Twelve did.
The interior is also quite the lovely place thanks to the fact that Sbarro just transferred over the Ferrari bits. You get leather-wrapped everything and oh yeah, a glorious Clarion stereo that takes up the entirety of the lower center console. That’s not even getting to the BBS wheels or the louvered headlights. I’m not even a Ferrari lady but oh my, just give me one drive in this beauty.
According to Bring a Trailer, the car was displayed in Geneva in 1984 before being delivered to industrialist Bernd Grohe. Sadly, it’s believed that Sbarro never put the Super Eight into production, so you’re looking at the only known example.
The car would later find itself in the Sbarro Museum before getting into the collections of two subsequent owners. The car shows up for sale every now and then, but it’s noted that the current owner’s had the car for four years now. None of the owners have driven the car very far, covering a total distance of around 30,000 kilometers, or 19,000 miles since the car was built.
As of publishing, the Bring a Trailer auction is sitting at $62,500 with seven days to go. This is the car’s second appearance on the platform.
Back in 2018, Bring a Trailer found this car for sale on eBay and wrote about the Sbarro on the BAT blog. So, this car is well-traveled and was seemingly cherished, too. The other good news is that this car is also road legal, which you can’t say about all one-offs.
The Super Eight is just one example of the genius that is the mind of Franco Sbarro. Love ’em or hate ’em, the car world is a better place for Sbarro’s designs existing. Now, do any of you want to go in on a group buy?
(Images: CarJager, unless otherwise noted.)
“Sbarro has rented a slice of the show floor”
I love this pun even if it wasn’t intended
This car is at $110K with 5 days still to go…
Hmmm…you are referencing two different vehicles, first 308 GTB (that matches with information on the super eight found otherwise) but then later 308 GT4 (earlier than the GTB). The engine has quattrovalvole stamped on the intake plenum, so it very likely is a 240 HP european version of the fuel injected kind (without cats 😉 the references to carburated iterations having 255 HP (or even 260) are ….let’s say “optimistic”.
Good lord, that stereo is insane. As is the rest of it. Me likey.
yeah there was a time when they flirted with “rack mount” car units with individual components. They were also huge in the home market at the time, the ultimate being a massive Pioneer set up..
https://www.soundsgoodtomehouston.com/pioneerrack.htm
I remember drooling over it in 1981 or 82, in the American Express catalog, the same one that had the 28k gold DeLorean
That is fabulous. I have an old Pioneer amp from the late 70s. It still has the receipt on the bottom. It cost 299 pounds, which was a months fairly decent wages back then. It has a shit ton of inputs, and still sounds great. I love it.
Those are genuinely great units. Nostalgia aside..
Up to 80K as of now. Wow.
The whole car is glorious, but that Clarion stack gives me a certain kind of feelings
That Clarion stack is 80s awesome!
I’m still seeing it deliver pies for CosaNostra Pizza, though.
Eighties tail lights! Are they lifted from a Renault Fuego?
Opel Ascona C (1981–1988)…
Thank you!
I love everything about this thing. 80s beauty at its best…
This is a great article. I had heard of Sbarro before, but didn’t know his history. It’s probably worthy of a deeper dive!
Also: the price for that car doesn’t seem so ridiculous. I mean, it’s more than I have to my name, but possibly not beyond the realms of possibility for another mortal. Though, now I’ve copped there’s a whole week to go on the auction so… yeah, maybe not.
If you every visit France, that Sbarro museum is pretty crazy. And if you have a years or two to spend, you can apply to the Sbarro design school and build a crazy one-off continuing his legacy.
Fun fact: my engineering school bought the Sbarro school and is now surfing on its name
Being mid engine makes it look like prettier Metro 6R4. Thank dog it doesn’t have those awful hubless wheels. They were OK once but have become cliche, and make the world’s stupidest bicycles.
That stereo stack is the coolest damn thing that’s ever been fitted to a car ever.
Right? That stereo slaps hard.
Quadruple DIN!
The component design is just soooo 80’s, in a good way.
It’s a shame he didn’t go all the way and build it as a real hot hatch, with the Ferrari powertrain moved to the front and modified to steer and a full, folding back seat and maybe four doors for good measure (as it is, it looks like 4-door front doors on it now even if well enough disguised that I can’t tell what the donor car was).
IMO the mid-engine RWD layout is the best part. Very few hatchbacks are RWD, let alone mid-engined.
My 3 will be mid-engine, RWD with a 3 rotor out of a Cosmo when I eventually “finish” it. Need a second car and a place to work before I get started on all that.
This sounds like the best thing ever, though personally I’d do it with a last-gen 323 hatch.
Very few modern hatchbacks, you mean. Back in the 70s and 80s you had Gremlins, Pacers, Pintos, Vegas, Mustang II, Fox Mustangs, gen 3 and 4 Camaros and Firebirds that were all either solely or only available as hatchbacks with RWD. Sadly, none were mid engined. Although there were type 4 VWs that were rear-engined RWD drive. Probably other European cars that I’m forgetting or simply don’t know about.
And of course, my favorite one, which was the E36 318ti compact, which was light, cheap, and very much RWD. The Z3 M-Coupe is a great little RWD hatchback too, though that’s more of a shooting brake than anything.
This is very much in the same club as the Renault 5 Turbo or Peugoet 205 T16; mid-engined monsters.
You could already get one of those.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancia_Thema
I can kick in $20. Who’s with me?!?
I found £4.30 down the back of the sofa.
I found 34€ in the kitchen table (probably my wife left it there), so I’m in!
Nothing like stuffing a large engine into a small car.
That’s even better than stuffing cheese inside a pizza crust.
Jesus, just drive the thing, people! There’s one of them, so mileage won’t bother the resale value.
Kinda makes me want to cram a Hemi into the back of an Omni.
The would certainly be the “H” in GLH.
Then it would become a GLHAOMGITTTIGKM!
(Goes like hell oh my god I think this thing is gonna kill me!)
Everyone has to die. The only questions are where, when, why, what and how. This answers all and in the best possible ways.
Nothing like going out in a blaze of glory! And possibly a blaze of gasoline.
Mmm… hooman flambe’
That is so beautifully 80s. Give me one of these and that Hyundai N Vision 74 and I will die a very happy, but retro death.
The Maranello Pacerello. I like it.
Pizza!
Doesn’t that interior look like it was carved from Pepperoni?
I thought so anyway….