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Once there were numerous small Italian companies and workshops manufacturing special and custom cars based on Fiat components. Sometimes these cars were one-offs, displayed at shows and then sold. In other occasions small series were built, filling niches in the already broad Fiat model range or offering limited budget yet competitive racing cars. Giovanni Moretti started one of the better known companies of this kind, though he also manufactured cars with self developed engines, chassis and transmissions.
For his Fiat based cars, a wide variety of models almost completely spanning the Fiat component range, the bodies were usually designed in-house. Since Moretti was a small company world class designers were hardly affordable so as an alternative attractive designs or styling elements introduced by other, more established Italian coach builders were often "adopted". During the 1960s Moretti was regularly inspired by the work of Pininfarina, probably the most popular car design firm in Italy, and in 1966 Pininfarina's Fiat Dino Spider design struck a nerve in particular. From then on till about 1970 Moretti offered a collection of cars resembling the Dino Spider and based on different, more affordable, Fiat mass production models. And with an unique twist: all these models were fixed roof coupes as opposed to the soft top only Dino Spider.
Since the Moretti models were smaller than the Fiat Dinos you can call them the little Dinos, for those who wished the looks but not (quite) the expense...
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