The eighties were a magical time. It was a time when phones had cords, hairdos were extremely flammable, and spandex jumpsuits could also be considered menswear.
A time where all the things that current hip kids love ironically were the pinnacle of style and good taste.
The eighties were loud, they were tacky, and they were brilliant.
And chances are that you would have rolled up to the club in your plastic-clad Capri, to dance all night to music made by this man:
Giorgio Moroder.
He was the god of eighties disco, forming the missing link between 70's Kraftwerk and the later house and techno music. He produced the rolling, spacy synthesizer music that defined the era, using countless bands as a marketing tool.
An era that he started off with Donna Summers' great hit, I Feel Love.
Now by the mid eighties the man was behind about a quarter of all mainstream disco music. There wasn't a club you could go without hearing him playing a Roland TB 303 at least once a night.
And as such the man became rich as hell, rich enough even for the ladies to ignore how spectacularly hideous he was.
Which is where this story actually starts being about cars.
You see, being Italian Moroder had a love for cars. And since he had the cash he would probably be driving something suitable like this, thundering down the autostrada with a giant cloud of cocaine in his wake.
He wanted something better though.
So he teamed up with Claudio Zampolli to make his own supercar, a car to define the era. And this is the result: the Cizeta-Moroder V16T.
Moroder knew that the car should look as outrageous as possible, and he found help in Marcello Gandini. Gandini was of course famous for penning the Lamborghini Miura and Countach, and as such had quite some credentials.
In fact, at that very time he was working on a replacement for the Countach by the then Chrysler owned Lamborghini. Chrysler didn't like his original designs though, deeming them "too aggressive". Gandini then passed these designs on to Cizeta, who loved them.
This explains why the V16T bears more than a passing resemblance to the later Diablo.
It was a car of superlatives. Whereas your typical Countach or Testarossa had twelve cylinders the Cizeta had sixteen. The engine being two Lamborghini Urraco V8's mated together, and put transversely behind the driver.
You think your Fiero is badass with its two pop-up headlights? My Cizeta has four.
Moroder knew as no other other that good music is about timing. As such the 1988 unveiling of the car was perfectly timed as well, with a global economic depression that is.
Only ten cars were ever built, and Moroder backed out of the investment to move into Colombian baking powder.
Don't think that this meant an untimely death for the V16t, in fact it is still possible to order a brand new one today from Cizeta.
At a meagre $649000. Or $849000 if you want the roof cut off. A $100000 deposit is mandatory.
In every logical way the Cizeta is utterly ridiculous, which is exactly what makes it the perfect child of its time.
It makes the Cizeta the original hipster supercar; the supercar you've probably never heard of; the car that was into 16 cylinders before it was cool (this is looking at you, Bugatti). Gah.
As a parting gift, a short video of its unveiling.
A time where all the things that current hip kids love ironically were the pinnacle of style and good taste.
The eighties were loud, they were tacky, and they were brilliant.
And chances are that you would have rolled up to the club in your plastic-clad Capri, to dance all night to music made by this man:
Giorgio Moroder.
He was the god of eighties disco, forming the missing link between 70's Kraftwerk and the later house and techno music. He produced the rolling, spacy synthesizer music that defined the era, using countless bands as a marketing tool.
An era that he started off with Donna Summers' great hit, I Feel Love.
Now by the mid eighties the man was behind about a quarter of all mainstream disco music. There wasn't a club you could go without hearing him playing a Roland TB 303 at least once a night.
And as such the man became rich as hell, rich enough even for the ladies to ignore how spectacularly hideous he was.
Which is where this story actually starts being about cars.
You see, being Italian Moroder had a love for cars. And since he had the cash he would probably be driving something suitable like this, thundering down the autostrada with a giant cloud of cocaine in his wake.
He wanted something better though.
So he teamed up with Claudio Zampolli to make his own supercar, a car to define the era. And this is the result: the Cizeta-Moroder V16T.
Moroder knew that the car should look as outrageous as possible, and he found help in Marcello Gandini. Gandini was of course famous for penning the Lamborghini Miura and Countach, and as such had quite some credentials.
In fact, at that very time he was working on a replacement for the Countach by the then Chrysler owned Lamborghini. Chrysler didn't like his original designs though, deeming them "too aggressive". Gandini then passed these designs on to Cizeta, who loved them.
This explains why the V16T bears more than a passing resemblance to the later Diablo.
It was a car of superlatives. Whereas your typical Countach or Testarossa had twelve cylinders the Cizeta had sixteen. The engine being two Lamborghini Urraco V8's mated together, and put transversely behind the driver.
You think your Fiero is badass with its two pop-up headlights? My Cizeta has four.
Moroder knew as no other other that good music is about timing. As such the 1988 unveiling of the car was perfectly timed as well, with a global economic depression that is.
Only ten cars were ever built, and Moroder backed out of the investment to move into Colombian baking powder.
Don't think that this meant an untimely death for the V16t, in fact it is still possible to order a brand new one today from Cizeta.
At a meagre $649000. Or $849000 if you want the roof cut off. A $100000 deposit is mandatory.
In every logical way the Cizeta is utterly ridiculous, which is exactly what makes it the perfect child of its time.
It makes the Cizeta the original hipster supercar; the supercar you've probably never heard of; the car that was into 16 cylinders before it was cool (this is looking at you, Bugatti). Gah.
As a parting gift, a short video of its unveiling.
And... What a car! Transverse V16... Now I've seen it all (no, probably not ;D).