The story
Officine Padane was founded in 1943. The company traces its origins to the Modena-based Orlandi company, which from 1921 onwards primarily manufactured bodies for buses. Antonio Vismara took over Orlandi in the course of 1943 and moved the company to new workshops. Initially the company was called Carrozzeria e Meccanica Padana, but from 1950 the name was changed to Officine Padane. The relationship refers to the Italian name of the Po Valley.
Like its predecessor, Padane mainly manufactured bus bodies. The chassis came from Fiat, Daimler-Benz, Lancia, OM and Volvo. Many buses were exported.
In the 1960s and 1970s, Padane also took on small batch production of passenger cars. These included the Maserati Mistral, the Maserati Indy, and the Maserati Bora, as well as the Stutz Blackhawk I and the Stutz Duplex, which were distributed by Stutz Motor Car Company. Padane built most of the coupés of the first series (1971) using numerous Italian add-on parts (door handles from the Maserati Indy, taillights from the Fiat 850), before Carrozzeria Saturn in Cavallermaggiore took over series production of the Stutz.
In the early 1980s, the Milan-based Società Costruzioni Industriali Milano (Socimi) took over the company. Due to economic difficulties of the new parent company, Padane also suffered and had to close in 1992 after bankruptcy.
From Wikipedia’s article on Officine Padane, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3