Pietro Frua was born in Turin in 1913, the fourth son of a Fiat employee, and was trained as a draftsman at the Scuola Allievi Fiat. He joined Stabilimenti Farina at 17 and became its director of styling at 22, where he first met Giovanni Michelotti, who later succeeded him as head of styling. After the war he bought a bombed factory in 1944 and built his own cars, beginning with a 1946 Fiat 1100C spyder. From 1950 to 1957 he made 19 Maserati A6G spyders and seven coupes.
In 1957 he sold his business to Ghia, and Luigi Segre made him head of Ghia Design, where he was responsible for the successful Renault Floride, of which about 117,000 were sold in ten years. A dispute over who created it led him to leave. He designed cars for Ghia-Aigle in Switzerland and Carrosserie Italsuisse in Geneva.
In 1965 AC showed his 7-litre AC 428 Frua Spyder, drawing on the Mistral. AC’s chairman and managing director, Derek Hurlock, later recommended him to another client, in part because of his work on the AC 428. He died in 1983.
