The Fiat 2300 is a

six-cylinder The straight-six engine (also referred to as an inline-six engine; abbreviated I6 or L6) is a piston engine with six cylinders arranged in a straight line along the crankshaft. A straight-six engine has perfect primary and secondary engine balan ...

executive car Executive car is a British term for a large car which is equivalent to the European E-segment and American full-size classifications. Executive cars are larger than compact executive cars (and the non-luxury equivalent mid-size cars), and small ...

which was produced by

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

automotive manufacturer

Fiat Fiat Automobiles S.p.A. (, , ; originally FIAT, it, Fabbrica Italiana Automobili di Torino, lit=Italian Automobiles Factory of Turin) is an Italian automobile manufacturer, formerly part of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, and since 2021 a subsidiary ...

between 1961 and 1969. The 2300 was made as saloon (styled by

Dante Giacosa Dante Giacosa (3 January 1905 - 31 March 1996) was an Italians, Italian automobile designer and engineer responsible for a range of Italian automobile designs — and for refining the front-wheel drive layout to an industry-standard configurati ...

estate car A station wagon ( US, also wagon) or estate car ( UK, also estate), is an automotive body-style variant of a sedan/saloon with its roof extended rearward over a shared passenger/cargo volume with access at the back via a third or fifth door ( ...

and

coupé A coupe or coupé (, ) is a passenger car with a sloping or truncated rear roofline and two doors. The term ''coupé'' was first applied to horse-drawn carriages for two passengers without rear-facing seats. It comes from the French past parti ...

. The 2300 saloon is noteworthy as in 1966 it became the first Fiat model to be available with an

automatic transmission An automatic transmission (sometimes abbreviated to auto or AT) is a multi-speed transmission used in internal combustion engine-based motor vehicles that does not require any input from the driver to change forward gears under normal driving c ...

2300 Coupé

Alongside saloon and estate models the 2300 range included

Ghia Carrozzeria Ghia SpA (established 1916 in Turin) is an Italian automobile design and coachbuilder, coachbuilding firm, established by Giacinto Ghia and Gariglio as "Carrozzeria Ghia & Gariglio". The headquarters are located at Corso Guglielmo Mar ...

-designed

grand tourer A grand tourer (GT) is a type of car that is designed for high speed and long-distance driving, due to a combination of performance and luxury attributes. The most common format is a front-engine, rear-wheel-drive two-door coupé with either ...

s, the Fiat 2300 Coupé and 2300S Coupé—the latter fitted with a more powerful engine with double twin-choke carburettors. The shape of the car was first seen in public when Ghia presented it as a prototype sports coupé at the 1960 Turin Motor Show. A production version, based on the newly launched Fiat 2300 saloon was presented in 1961 and went on general sale in 1962. Having developed the coupé body, Ghia lacked the production capacity needed for the volumes envisaged, and were obliged to subcontract its production to

OSI OSI may refer to: Places * Osijek Airport (IATA code: OSI), an airport in Croatia * Ősi, a village in Veszprém county, Hungary * Oši, an archaeological site in Semigallia, Latvia * Osi, a village in Ido-Osi, Ekiti State, Nigeria * Osi, Ekiti ...

. The coupé body was welded to the standard floor platform of the 2300 saloon with which it shared its core components. (Despite being a new model, the 2300 saloon was in most respects a well-proven design, being a larger engined version of the Fiat 2100 that had been available since 1959.) The wheelbase was identical, but the coupé had a slightly wider track at both ends than the saloon, and final drive gearing for the coupé was increased to 3.9 (3.72 for the 2300S coupé) which translated to 20.9 mph (33.6 km/h) per 1,000 rpm. Inside the 2300 Coupé featured power operated windows and other luxury fittings.

Specifications

The Fiat 2300 used

unibody A vehicle frame, also historically known as its '' chassis'', is the main supporting structure of a motor vehicle to which all other components are attached, comparable to the skeleton of an organism. Until the 1930s, virtually every car ha ...

construction. Front suspension was by

double wishbone A double wishbone suspension is an independent suspension design for automobiles using two (occasionally parallel) wishbone-shaped arms to locate the wheel. Each wishbone or arm has two mounting points to the chassis and one joint at the knuckl ...

s, sprung by

torsion bar A torsion bar suspension, also known as a torsion spring suspension, is any vehicle suspension that uses a torsion bar as its main weight-bearing spring. One end of a long metal bar is attached firmly to the vehicle chassis; the opposite end termi ...

s, with hydraulic dampers and an

anti-roll bar An anti-roll bar (roll bar, anti-sway bar, sway bar, stabilizer bar) is a part of many automobile suspensions that helps reduce the body roll of a vehicle during fast cornering or over road irregularities. It connects opposite (left/right) whee ...

; at the rear there was a

solid axle Solid is one of the four fundamental states of matter (the others being liquid, gas, and plasma). The molecules in a solid are closely packed together and contain the least amount of kinetic energy. A solid is characterized by structura ...

with

leaf spring A leaf spring is a simple form of spring commonly used for the suspension in wheeled vehicles. Originally called a ''laminated'' or ''carriage spring'', and sometimes referred to as a semi-elliptical spring, elliptical spring, or cart spring, it ...

s, hydraulic dampers and an anti-roll bar. The brakes were servo-assisted discs on all four corners. On most 2300s and all 2300S coupés the transmission was an all- synchromesh 4-speed manual, with optional

overdrive Overdrive may refer to: Organizations * OverDrive, Inc., a digital distributor of entertainment media ** OverDrive Media Console, a media player developed by OverDrive, Inc. * Overdrive PC, a subsidiary of Velocity Micro Technology * Overdrive ...

. A Saxomat automated clutch was available as optional extra; from 1966 a Borg Warner 3-speed automatic was offered in its place. The

overhead valve An overhead valve (OHV) engine, sometimes called a ''pushrod engine'', is a piston engine whose valves are located in the cylinder head above the combustion chamber. This contrasts with earlier flathead engines, where the valves were located be ...

straight-six engine The straight-six engine (also referred to as an inline-six engine; abbreviated I6 or L6) is a piston engine with six cylinders arranged in a straight line along the crankshaft. A straight-six engine has perfect primary and secondary engine bala ...

had a cast iron

block Block or blocked may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasting * Block programming, the result of a programming strategy in broadcasting * W242BX, a radio station licensed to Greenville, South Carolina, United States known as ''96.3 ...

and an aluminium

cylinder head In an internal combustion engine, the cylinder head (often abbreviated to simply "head") sits above the cylinders and forms the roof of the combustion chamber. In sidevalve engines, the head is a simple sheet of metal; whereas in more modern ov ...

. While the 2300 engine was fitted with a single twin-choke downdraught

carburettor A carburetor (also spelled carburettor) is a device used by an internal combustion engine to control and mix air and fuel entering the engine. The primary method of adding fuel to the intake air is through the venturi tube in the main meterin ...

, the more powerful 2300S used two twin-choke horizontal carburettors. File:Fiat 2300.jpg, Fiat 2300 Saloon File:Fiat 2300 estate ca 1968.jpg, Fiat 2300 Estate in UK (1967) File:Fiat 2300-S-Coupé.JPG, Fiat 2300 S Coupe File:2300 hafen.jpg, Fiat 2300 S Coupe 3. Series File:Ghia-Fiat G230S 1963 green vl TCE.jpg, Ghia-Fiat G230S based on Fiat 2300 S

2300 Coupé

Specifications

References

Further reading