Osella PA6/PA7

The PA6 achieved its first win/victory at the 1978 300 km Nürburgring. This was the first of 13 victories for the PA6 chassis. It would go on to achieve 12 more victories over the next 4 years, with its last victory coming in the hand of Ruedi Caprez at Hockenheim in 1982.

When developing the PA7, Osella didn't just think about factory inserts of this type. The PA7 was built almost exclusively for customer use and many chassis were therefore sold to private drivers and private teams. One of the first chassis (079) went to the Italian racing driver Carlo Franchi, who started with it in the Italian Group 6 championship. However, the PA7 made its racing debut at the 1979 Mugello 6 Hours, an endurance race that counted for the World Sportscar Championship. Franchi contested the race together with Gianfranco Palazzoli (pseudonym Pal Joe) and finished in eighth place overall. That was second place in the class for 2-liter vehicles. The victory went to the brand colleagues Giorgio Francia and Lella Lombardi, who drove an Osella PA6.

The PA7's first race win is historic for Osella, marking the team's first of three overall victories in a World Sportscar Championship race. Lella Lombardi and Enrico Grimaldi won the 1979 Pergusa 6 Hours by a margin of 15 seconds over the Lancia Beta Montecarlo of Riccardo Patrese and Carlo Facetti.

In the years that followed, PA7s were mainly driven at national Italian sports car races and hill climbs. In 1980, Eugenio Renna (pseudonym Amphicar ) won the Group 6 race in Pergusa and a year later Gabriele Ciuti won this race. In 1984 and 1985 Herbert Stenger finished second overall in the racing cars in the European Hill Climb Championship with a PA7.