Italdesign Aztec on Ebay!

I remember seeing the Aztec at the Turin Motor Show back in 1988. Admittedly I've never been a big fan of its shapes but I've always seen it as a statement more than a work of art. 

Designed to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of Giugiaro house (then Italdesign), the design is a modular base for three different coach styles being Asgard, Aspid and Aztec, respectively a people carrier, a sort of shooting brake and an innovative barchetta.

Sketches demonstrate that the designer has been fantasising about a dual cockpit barchetta since the late fifties but only managed to finally materialise his view in this daring vehicle. Two streamlined open canopies wrap around driver and passenger that can communicate via a headset and microphone. This is only one of the gizmos that were included in the design, most notably some futuristic control panels on the flares that should have controlled various services via three digit codes. For the power unit they opted for the rally and pikes peak champion Audi 5 cylinder spiced up by a turbo, connected to the notorious Lancia Delta Integrale 4WD distribution. The car was supposed to be only a stepstone but Japanese firm Compakt decided to start a production line for 250 cars. It is unclear how many were actually produced, some say 50, some 25 and some others only 18. All the gizmos were dropped with the exception of the inboard communication system but very few details were changed from the original prototypes, most notably the tail lights.

The first production car performed some demonstrative laps at the 1992 Monaco Grand Prix and featured in an Industrial design exhibition at the Musée Georges Pompidou in Paris.

I have to admit it did hurt to find one in such bad state for sale on Ebay. This car was allegedly found in very poor state in a barn with the engine seized. I don't understand the choice of upgrading the engine from the 2.2 Turbo to a newer 3.7 for this will seriously affect the originality of the vehicle and sure I hope the new owner will return the paint to the original silver. On the bright side the sale includes the  original moulds for the fiberglass body panels, supporting the thesis that this chassis numbered 18 is actually the last ever made.  

The price tag when new was a whopping £750.000 and apparently a good example traded hands in the past years for £250.000. Coy's estimate for an almost complete un-numbered and incomplete black Aztec in 2010 was €45000 - €55000. The auction starts at £15.000 and I hope to see some bidding auction to discover where the reserve has been placed. 

Click HERE to follow the Auction.

CCT back to business!!

Unfortunately some unfortunate events in my personal life kept me away from this blog for a couple of months but this time gave me a chance to collect a lot of material for future posts. Let's get back to business by taking a look at a couple of interesting cars capable of being "future regrets".

My first choice would be an old passion of mine and in my opinion one of the cars that still awaits the respect it fully deserves, especially here in the UK. This Lancia Beta Montecarlo  is advertised also on ebay for £1200 and no reserve. It sure needs some works to get back on the road, but it seems quite solid in the pictures and it would definitely be worth a trip. If you are not familiar with the gifted and troubled mid engined Beta Montecarlo take a look at this website.

The second eye catcher on ebay lately has been this Berkeley T60. I've asked my dear friend Ray Bell (from the Berkeley's Club) for a quick description and evaluation. "Berkeley produced about 4200 cars altogether, from 1956 until 1961, when the company went out of business.

The T60, launched in August 1959 sold more than any of the other models - altogether around 1800 were made. The design was derived from the earlier 4 wheeled 'Sports 328', using the same 328cc Excelsior twin 2 stroke engine, with a 4 speed gearbox driving the front wheels. Much of its popularity was due to the fact that a three wheeler could be driven on a motorcycle licence provided that the reverse gear was blanked off. 

Increasingly these ground-breaking cars are seen as classics worthy of restoration, and this T60, fitted with a comparatively rare hardtop, looks like a good specimen of a standard T60.

Typically a well restored T60 will fetch £3,000 - £3,500. "

At the moment 17 bids are fetching £2,800 but are not crossing the reserve price yet. My bet is that the car  will get closer to £4.000 than £3.500 but I have a feeling it will not be enough for the reserve. 

I will definitely keep an eye on this auction, the ingredients are the ones for a complete oddball. The seller doesn't know how to spell and anyway doesn't seem to know the correct name of it. It is in fact a Jensen GT (as it says on the bumper) and not a Jenson Healy or a Jensen Healey, the connection with Healey ended in 1975. The description and pictures would keep me away from it but 15 bids certainly show a lot of interest for this attractive shooting brake. Only 473 were ever made and under the bonnet there should be a 1.973cc Lotus twin-cam,  but with perfect examples being evaluated around £6.000 I would say that this is a far cry from a wise investment. 15 bids, £460 so far, 4 days and no reserve make for an interesting auction to keep an eye on, thou.