Monteverdi Hai 450SS
One of the most exclusive supercars of all on display at the 2011 Goodwood Revival.
The Goodwood Revival is probably paradise on earth when it comes to car spotting. This year was no exception, with three Ferrari 250GTOs alone in the central paddock. However, one car that really caught my eye this year was a Monteverdi Hai 450SS parked on its own outside the control tower.
The Hai (which is German for Shark) is one of the most interesting and enigmatic supercars from the early seventies. Like many a supercar maker from the era, the Monteverdi car company was started out of an argument with Enzo Ferrari. Monteverdi was the Swiss Ferrari importer until he disagreed with Ferrari’s requirements to take 100 cars for stock and pay for them up front. As with all these arguments I’m not sure if this is completely true, but considering Ferrari had financial issues in the late Sixties it does seem plausible.
Monteverdi went the usual route for these manufacturers and mated Italian styling to American V8 power, in this case courtesy of Chrysler. Monteverdi’s first offering was the 375, a conventional GT car with a Chrysler 440 Magnum V8. The Hai followed, and was a mid-engined two seater. Styled by Trevor Fiore of design house Fissore, it was a contemporary of the Lamborghini Miura or De Tomaso Mangusta.
The Hai’s trump card over its potential rivals was the use of the mighty MOPAR 426 Hemi V8, made famous by its dominance in NASCAR and drag racing. In fact, despite its considerable power (a claimed 450bhp) the Hemi was not an ideal engine for a small mid-engined supercar, since the unit was very large and often nicknamed the elephant motor. In order to fit it into the car, the front of the engine is practically in the cockpit with the passengers, and I suspect it is rather loud inside!
The upside of the Hemi was the performance it endowed on the Hai, which boasted an alleged top speed of over 180mph, though I don’t believe this was ever independently verified. Looking at the example at Goodwood, I would imagine that attempting a top speed run would be a scary experience indeed, since the front end design doesn’t look like it would provide any downforce at all; quite the opposite, in fact!
To add to the potential for frights, the Goodwood car was sporting Borrani wire wheels. Though they look nice, the general consensus in the Ferrari Daytona community is that the wire spokes on Borranis struggle to cope with the weight of the Daytona and the torque of its engine, especially under heavy use, so I suspect the Hemi would provide far too much grunt for these wheels to handle.
The first example of the Hai, known as the Hai 450SS, was revealed in 1970 in an interesting shade of violet. A second example followed in 1971, with a longer wheelbase and a slightly more sensible 390 Magnum V8, and was known as the 450GTS. Officially offered to the public for a massive $27,000, Monteverdi intended to produce a run of fifty examples. By way of comparison, back then a Miura was $21,000 and a Daytona cost a mere $19,500. The eye-watering price - and Monteverdi himself suggesting to any potential customers that they would probably be better off with a 375 - resulted in no further examples being built in period.
The 375 continued to trickle out of the factory throughout the Seventies with a variety of body styles, before Monteverdi switched to producing dubiously-rebodied versions of the Mercedes S Class and a four-door conversion of the Range Rover before the factory introduced its own version. Interestingly, it is said Monteverdi received a small royalty on all four-door versions of the Mk 1 Range Rover after this!
Monteverdi acquired the Onyx Formula One team in the early Nineties and from this produced a one-off new version of the Hai which was not related to the previous cars, and sported a Cosworth F1 engine! After this the Monteverdi Car company faded away, although two further versions of the orginal Hai were constructed from previously unused spares through the family-owned Monteverdi Museum, and I suspect that the example at Goodwood was one of these.
With only four in existence (and all but the first one owned by the Monteverdi Museum) the chances of seeing one on the road are beyond remote. It’s also one of those examples of what might have been, as the prospect of a 426 Hemi in an Italian chassis, even with the potential packaging issues, is a tantalising one.