Every now and again, something properly strange shows up at a car meet. Not strange in the usual sense of cobbled-together oddities or something completely out of context, but strange in the way that it makes you question your own memory. As if you've somehow forgotten about an obscure tuning firm from the 1980s who made turbocharged saloon cars with sliding headlamp covers and Italian branding.
Back in 2019, I spotted exactly that.
I spied it whilst wandering through the car park outside the Arneitz campsite at Faakersee during the Wörthersee GTI festival. A silver Talbot Solara - unusual in and of itself at a VW focused event - wearing "Nino Barrini" decals on its flanks. It sat squat on black Momo alloys, finished in silver metallic with anthracite bumpers and red highlights that evoked an '80s Mitsubishi Lancer Turbo. The real intrigue? A turbo badge on the grille and a pair of supercool headlamp covers that wouldn't have looked out of place on an Orciari catalogue page.
Everything about it was just right. It sat so nicely, it looked so classy, the detailing subtle and refined. It looked more like a prototype or one‑off from some long‑forgotten defunct styling house than a homebrew special. I'd maybe change the wheels, but a smaller diameter version of the Momos would have been a plausible period choice. When I got home I started digging. I found... absolutely nothing. Zero. Not a single hit for "Nino Barrini". No forum threads. No old brochures. No logo matches. Just a dead end.
I started a thread on Retro Rides asking if anyone knew anything. I hoped someone would chime in with a photo from an old French magazine or maybe a tiny one line reference to the car from a 1982 Geneva Motor Show report. But nothing came. So puzzling: "Who is Nino Barrini?"
I keep coming back to this car. This wasn't just some ratty Solara on coilovers. This was something far more considered. The decals looked too good to be homespun. Even the paint - most likely Gris Futura, a proper Talbot silver - looked right. Whoever built it knew exactly what they wanted to create. But they left no digital trail whatsoever.
Somewhere out there, in the beautiful Carinthian hills or quietly rusting in an Austrian lock-up, is one of the most distinctive and curious cars I’ve ever seen. And I still know sod all about it. If the owner ever reads this: please get in touch. Or don't. Part of me likes the idea that Nino Barrini is just a ghost story. A car that showed up once, made a few people question reality, and vanished into the Austrian mist.
To be honest, if I ever win the Euromillions, this is exactly the kind of thing I’d do: commission fake special editions just to sow confusion among future historians. I'd build an Escort RS2001 with period-correct paperwork, a Yardley Talbot Sunbeam complete with branded seat fabric and stickers, maybe even a gold-trimmed Lancia Y10 "Oro Imperiale" supposedly ordered new by a Sultan. Absolute chaos. But until then, Nino Barrini remains my favourite unsolved riddle.
