Some cars ask to be understood. Others don’t care if you understand them at all. The 1953 Fiat 8V Supersonic sits somewhere in between. It is striking to the point of suspicion, the kind of shape that makes you lean forward instinctively, not because you’re admiring it, but because you’re trying to figure out what you’re looking at. It doesn’t read as dominance or excess. It reads as ambition that hasn’t yet decided how it wants to land.
That matters, because the Supersonic only really makes sense when you stop asking whether it succeeded and start asking why it exists at all.
The car lives under the care of Tucker Watson, whose job is not ownership or authorship, but stewardship. “For a living, I look after an exceptional collection of cars,” Watson says. “Some of my friends call me a car nanny.” He says it without irony. His days are not spent rewriting history or chasing marginal gains. “Some days it’s just cleaning windows. Some days it’s cleaning oil off the floor. Some days I get in and say, why are there five neutrals in this car?” The work only appears unglamorous because it happens out of view. His responsibility is simple: keep each car as good as it can be while it’s there.
The Supersonic arrived with him about a year ago, and Watson doesn’t dress it up. “I personally don’t think it has a bad angle,” he says, which is about as close as he gets to praise. What stopped him cold were the tail lights. “They were styled to look like the afterburner on a jet engine,” he explains. “You hear the beautiful Italian V8 under the hood, then you see the tail lights, and that was enough for me.” The implication matters as much as the execution. This is a car speaking the language of the early 1950s fluently and without apology.
Postwar Italy was rebuilding, materially and psychologically. Optimism was not subtle. Aviation had become the clearest symbol of progress, and speed was no longer just functional, it was aspirational. Design across Europe leaned forward hard, borrowing cues from aircraft, rockets, and anything that suggested a cleaner, faster future. Fiat’s decision to build a V8 at all was ambitious. Calling it the “8V” was practical. Ford owned the rights to the V8 name, so Fiat sidestepped the issue linguistically and carried on.
Just over a hundred 8V chassis were built. Fifteen were sent to Ghia in Turin, where they emerged as Supersonics. The design is widely attributed to Giovanni Savonuzzi, whose background in aeronautics shows through in the car’s surfaces. This is not decoration. It’s an attempt at shaping air, whether or not the math fully backed it up. The name Supersonic was not modest, but modesty was never the point. This was jet age confidence made physical.
Mechanically, the car is a product of its moment. The two liter V8 produced around 104 horsepower, paired with a four speed manual and a relatively light body. On paper, it doesn’t overwhelm. In context, it doesn’t need to. Watson sees balance where others might look for shortcomings. “The engine is a good match for the gearbox,” he says. “I think both of those are good matches for the suspension. I don’t think it needs anything. I think they got it right.” That statement carries weight coming from someone whose job is to preserve intent, not correct it.
Not everyone was convinced when the car was new. This Supersonic was purchased by Henry Lavin, a General Motors designer who encountered it at the Geneva Auto Show and ordered one on the spot. The design worked on him immediately. The reality did not. After fewer than ten thousand kilometers, Lavin wrote to Fiat describing an engine that, in his words, was in an “almost impossible state.”
Fiat’s reply was candid rather than conciliatory. “We are sorry for what you have complained of with regard to this,” the letter began. “We want to point out that only a few units, not over 200 of our eight V model, have been put out. These units were mainly destined to those sportsmen who wish to use them in the numerous road races which take place in Italy.”
The tone did not soften. “Therefore, this is a car which, due to its characteristics, cannot give full satisfaction when it is used as a standard passenger car.” Blunt but cordial. Fiat arranged to send Lavin a replacement engine.
That tension follows the Supersonic throughout its life. Over the years, this car passed through multiple hands and configurations, including a long period running a Chevrolet 283 V8. In the late 1990s, its original engine was located in another Supersonic and reunited with the chassis through cooperation between owners. It was restored and painted in its current color ahead of its appearance at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance in 2005. Today, Watson is clear about what matters. The car is complete. It is correct. That’s enough.
Despite being sold as a race car, Watson doesn’t read it that way. “My impression is that it’s a grand touring car,” he says. Looking at the interior, with its sculpted dash and careful switches, that feels accurate. He has driven cars from the era that are far more singular, far more compromised. “Looking at it and how beautiful it is,” he says, “I think it was always more of a touring car.”
The Fiat 8V Supersonic doesn’t need to be corrected to matter. It doesn’t need to be modernized to be relevant. It only needs time, care, and the discipline to leave it alone.
