In 1971, long before the Fiat X1/9 would make its official debut, a strangely familiar little sports car appeared under the bright lights of the Turin Motor Show. It looked like a Fiat. It smelled like a Fiat. But it wasn’t a Fiat. It was the De Tomaso 1600 Spider—a car that, as it turns out, was never meant to exist.
A rogue move? A De Tomaso stunt? A stylish act of sabotage? Turns out, it was all of the above—and perhaps something more.
The story comes straight from the late Tom Tjaarda’s personal recollections, now unearthed and published by the Registro Fiat. It begins, naturally, with Alejandro De Tomaso—racing driver, serial entrepreneur, and self-styled disruptor of the Italian car industry.
De Tomaso, who at the time owned Ghia, had a reputation for doing things his own way. On this occasion, that meant instructing his designer, the ever-composed Tjaarda, to copy a car he’d seen by chance in a supplier’s workshop—a full-scale prototype of Fiat and Bertone’s upcoming mid-engined sports car, later to be known as the X1/9.
“Copy it,” De Tomaso barked, gesturing toward a wooden mock-up hiding in the corner of a Grugliasco supplier’s warehouse. Tjaarda, stunned, hoped he’d misheard. But no. The order was clear—and the clock was ticking.
As De Tomaso distracted the workshop owner with a noisy price argument, Tjaarda mentally sketched the car—no paper, no pen, just a mind working overtime under pressure. What followed was a whirlwind of cloak-and-dagger design: drawings hidden in drawers, a wooden buck built off-site, and whispered rumors swirling through the Ghia halls.
By the time the 1971 Turin Motor Show rolled around, Ghia had built the clone. The car was pushed under the lights as the De Tomaso 1600 Spider, proudly displayed at the heart of the carrozzieri pavilion. The original X1/9—still under wraps and months from launch—was only meters away, quietly housed in the Bertone stand.
But it wasn’t Bertone who first raised an eyebrow. That honor went to Douglas Blane of Car Magazine, who greeted Tjaarda with a mix of amusement and disbelief: “This time, you’ve really lost it. This is going to be chaos.”
He wasn’t wrong.
When Bertone’s team spotted the impostor, the reaction was swift but strangely subdued. Nuccio Bertone reportedly turned pale but held his composure, retreating into his private area with clenched teeth and quiet fury. The X1/9’s real designer, Marcello Gandini, wasn’t present—perhaps mercifully so.
Meanwhile, Tjaarda, still in a daze, watched it all unfold from the sidelines, heart racing, career dangling in the balance.
The automotive press—particularly abroad—had a field day. British and American headlines framed it as a scandal, a blatant act of industrial plagiarism. Yet back home, the Italian media largely kept its distance. De Tomaso was well-connected, and Fiat wasn’t in the mood for drama.
Ford, however, was less amused. As Ghia’s parent company at the time, the American giant quietly swept up the debris and moved on. De Tomaso, ever the maverick, soon left Ghia behind to pursue other ambitions. Within a year, the real X1/9 made its official debut, and the 1600 Spider vanished without a trace.
For decades, the episode remained shrouded in rumor and speculation. Was it arrogance? Spite? Madness? Or something more strategic?
Now, we know it was the latter.
As it turns out, De Tomaso wasn’t just playing games—he was playing poker. Along with Ghia, he had acquired the Vignale coachbuilding firm, which carried a serious debt to Fiat for a supply of 10.000 Fiat 850 chassis for the Vignalina. Fiat refused to renegotiate. So, De Tomaso found a way to force their hand.
The message was simple: settle the debt, or Ghia launches a lookalike sports car that undercuts the X1/9’s thunder before it even arrives. The bluff worked. Fiat made peace. Vignale got its lifeline. The Pantera entered production. And Maserati, soon to fall under De Tomaso’s control, continued to operate from the same Grugliasco plant.
As for the 1600 Spider, it disappeared as suddenly as it appeared—a whisper of controversy, a footnote in car history, and an object lesson in how far Alejandro De Tomaso was willing to go to get what he wanted.
It wasn’t even the first time De Tomaso played fast and loose with other people’s designs. Years earlier, he had quietly appropriated the Vallelunga project from Carrozzeria Fissore—another story of creative theft wrapped in charm and controversy. (Read the full story here)
If the X1/9 hadn’t been revealed yet, how did Douglas Blane and other members of the motoring press know the De Tomaso looked so much like it?
During the show, Fiat and Bertone were actually complaining right there on the floor, saying the design had been copied. Journalists like Douglas Blane were just standing by, watching the whole thing go down, and being in contact and friends with both Tjaarda and Bertone Marketing team the rumor spread fast.
Oh, I see – thanks for clarifying. But the journalists hadn’t actually seen the X1/9 yet and were only going on what was being argued: is that correct?