What carmanufacturer launched/invented the GT (Gran turismo) name?

[Haavard]

Was it Lancia or was it somebody else. I always thought that this was originally a Lancia expression, but I don't know.

[chris]

In the UK Daily Telegraph Saturday 13th. Stephen Bailey - Design Guru describing his most desired classic car said " On my driveway I would like to see a classic 1950's Lancia Aurelia B20 Gt the first manufacturer to use this terminolygy and the first truely Gran Tourismo touring car"

[leo capaldi]

Hello,
Yes the "Aurelia GT" was the first production car to bear the GT tag, but the term had been used in general terms before that, especially by coach-builders when describing their creations.
It is a bit of a bug-bear with me that people frequently refer to these beautiful cars by their "B" numbers - makes them sound like EU controlled items. The correct designation is Aurelia GT or Aurelia Coupe (sim Aurelia Spider), the B numbers are factory codes and should really be used in conjunction with other codes to indicate the series of GT and whether it is LHD or RHD.

[Haavard]

What about the Alfa Romeo 1750 GT from the 1920's?

[Koen De Wit]

I think that Alfa 1750 was called the Gran Sport, not Gran Turismo.

[Sebastien Simon]

I shall only take from Angela Cherrett's book on Alfa Romeo Tipo 6C:
In 1930 Alfa produced among others 6C1500SS, 6C1750T, 6C1750GT, 6C1750GS, from 1931 you could also have a 6C1750GTC.
SS stands for SuperSport
T stands for Turismo
GT for GranTurismo
GS for GranSport
GTC for GranTurismoCompressore

[Haavard]

So the conclusion must be that Alfa was first?

[Leo Capaldi]

As far as I can tell the Alfa Romeo 1750 GT was officialy designated the Alfa Romeo 1750 Gran Turismo and is only referred to as "GT" retrospectively. So that still leaves the Aurelia as the first production car to bear the GT tag.
A small but vitally important difference! Not sure what that difference is or why it is important though - there is rarely anything new in the car world everything just flows along.

Leo