Glas T700 Ranch Frua

The Glas Ranch Frua is a unique beach car prototype created by Italian coachbuilder Pietro Frua and first shown at the 1965 Geneva Motor Show.

Built on the Glas T700 chassis — a compact platform from the German company Hans Glas GmbH — the Ranch Frua embodied the “spiaggina” concept: open, lightweight leisure vehicles designed for sunny coastal driving, popular around the Mediterranean in the 1950s and 1960s.

Commissioned by Glas in the early 1960s and designated project number 330 by Frua, the Ranch was conceived as a minimalist, resort-friendly runabout. Its design featured no doors, a low wraparound windshield, simple tubular bumpers, and a folding canvas roof.

The open layout emphasized accessibility and a sense of freedom, while still carrying Frua’s signature design traits — elegant proportions, smooth surfaces, and clean modern lines.

Power came from a 700 cc air-cooled two-cylinder engine sourced from the Glas T700, producing about 30 horsepower. Performance was modest but perfectly adequate for short-distance or beachside driving.

Despite its charm and originality, the Ranch Frua remained a one-off. It never entered production, likely due to limited market demand for spiaggina-style vehicles and the small scale of Glas’s operations. The car instead served as a design showcase for Frua and a creative experiment for Glas.

Today, the Glas Ranch Frua survives as a preserved prototype and is displayed at the Automuseum Melle in Germany, where it stands as a rare and fascinating relic of mid-century European automotive design.