Sbarro (automobile)

Francesco Zefferino Sbarro ( born February 27, 1939 in Presicce ( province of Lecce), Italy), better known as Franco Sbarro, is an Italian designer and developer of a variety of vehicles, which are presented each year at the Geneva Motor Show.

Life

As the son of a farmer was fascinated by the mechanics. After he began to deal with literature in Lecce, he was driven by passion for automobiles with 17 years to November 1957 in Neuchâtel ( Switzerland ) to seek employment as an auto mechanic. His meeting with Georges Filipinetti, the owner of the Scuderia Filipinetti, meant that he was the chief mechanic. He was responsible there for the development and maintenance of racing cars and also had the oversight of the restoration of an AC Cobra, Ferrari 330P3 and Ford GT40. At this time he also built his first car: a Filipinetti coupe.

In 1968, the Sbarro team Filipinetti to start in Grandson in Switzerland on the shores of Lake Neuchâtel, the ACA Atelier d' Étude de Constructions Automobiles ( design office for automobiles ). The first project that bore his name, was the Sbarro ACA Spider, a two-seater racing car for young drivers based on a NSU TTS 1000 with Pikes engine. Lack orders remained there in the prototype. After Sbarro has mainly two kinds of vehicles manufactured: replicas of classic automobiles, mostly as a commissioned work, and own designs. The replicas were: A BMW 328 from the 1930s with modern technology, a Mercedes 540 K Roadster, also from the 1930s, with a modern V8 engine, and a Lola T70, a Ferrari P4, a Bugatti Royale and many more. The spectrum ranged from small sports coupe to the big four-wheel drive vehicle.

In 1992, Sbarro not far from its workshops removes the Espace Sbarro School, an unusual school, with a passion for automotive development and with different experiences is open to young people from all countries. You learn there under the guidance of Franco Sbarro how to develop on their own imagination a vehicle, draws and builds.

At the request of the King of Morocco in Casablanca, he founded another school called Création, which was transformed into a small manufacturing plant.

In 1995 he opened then in Pontarlier in France, a factory museum named ESPERA ( Espace Sbarro Pédagogique d' Etudes et de Réalisations Automobiles; German about: Educational Sbarro space for planning and construction of automobiles ), which, however, no longer accessible to the public is.

A year later he founded a specialized training and education center of the same name. The ESPERA center shows many examples of designs Sbarros and his students. In the museum more than 100 models were on display, from small electric vehicle on race cars to extraordinary concept vehicles. Also, bodies, engines and tool shapes were seen in the exhibition.

In addition to the regular registered mail to the school Franco Sbarro also offers week-long courses in automotive design and visiting days in its workshops, to watch him at work.