In 1962 Saetta brand appeared in the kart world. In the same year Giovanni Parrilla left Moto Parilla, that he had founded in 1946, and created Fimas (Fabbrica Italiana Motori a Scoppio) in order to devote himself entirely to the kart engines production with Saetta brand. The first Saetta engine is the V12, that was launched on the market in the spring of 1962. As far as the mechanical structure, the engine, in that period, was enough conventional, with rotary valve induction and the forced cooling. The forced cooling allowed to be also used on the first chassis of 60’s, that mounted the engine behind the seat, in a sheltered position. The problem was less perceived in the twin-engine category, where the engines, mounted on the seat sides, were however hit, at least not fully, by the air flow. But on Class 100 karts the forced cooling was absolutely necessary.

One of the peculiar features of the first V12, instead, was the presence of two supports that allowed to mount the engine backwards leaning of about 15 degrees, in order to lower the barycentre, in a position usually adopted by American manufacturers. This forced designers to use a long manifold between the rotary valve cover and the Dell’Orto MB 22 carburetor, crosswise mounted, in order to prevent the transmission chain to interfere with the manifold. This solution will disappear on 1963 model, where the carburetor will be mounted in the traditional position, directly on the rotary valve cover.

As we said, the Saetta V 12 structure is conventional: casings, head and cylinder are aluminium die-casted, and the liner is of cast iron. The specifications are the traditional ones as for European engines of the first generation: run of 54 mm and nominal bore of 48 mm, a total displacement of 97,7 cc. The max bore, at piston displacement limit, is of 48,54 mm. There’s a 5 ports cylinder, with the traditional lateral opened transfers directly inside casing, the third transfer, whose opening is controlled by the window on the the piston skirt, and the double exhaust, reinforced by the vertical cross member. Obviously the drive shaft is of steel, with on bearings rotating main journals, the connecting rod foot on brass and the head on roller cage.

Of the 1963 model, with on the rotary valve cover directly mounted carburetor, were produced Sport and Competition versions. With 1964 homologation also a V12 Competizione double carburettor appeared, with two Dell’Orto OCV21/17 central float chamber, originally used for navy engines. But this model, sold in a very few units, would not have a big success, because it offered a modest performance increase and had a lot of tuning and carburettors synchronization problems.