#CarsYouveNeverHeardOf : The OSI Silver Fox

Officine Stampaggi Industriali, or OSI for short, was founded in 1960 and for about 6 years went about making unique shapes out of Fords, Fiats and Alfa Romeos. It was much like a cheaper Zagato. In 1967, the company started to fall, 2000 workers had lost their jobs and the company founder, Luigi Segre had lost his life. OSI’s only choices now were either to collapse, or try and bring out one more car to save them all. They chose the latter, obviously.

The Silver Fox was born, and was a perfect example of…erm…creativity? The car was powered by a 1.0 litre Renault Alpine 4 cyclinder which had to be fitted to the left hand side, just behind the passenger seat to even out the cars weight. Three individual spoilers are located between the cabins, one of them at the front, one in the middle, and one at the rear. The front and the middle spoilers had to be adjusted manually, whereas the rear spoiler was in a fixed position. This helped the car reach an impressive 155 mph during testing, which put it just below the fastest cars at the time.

OSI hoped to have the Silver Fox entered for the 1968 24 hours of Le Mans but after the company fell into more trouble, the project was cancelled, and OSI was later consigned to history.