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SIThe licence plate is a clue to how much you can see out of it- or maybe how far above the ground you’re lying. Think deck chair inside coffin with a mad chainsaw bolted behind you: what’s not to love?! Nobody did style at all costs and “leave practicality to someone boring” quite like Space Age Italy 🛸 🇮🇹 👏
Some backstory: the Stratos Zero was originally built in 1970 as a one-off concept show car by Bertone, the avant-garde Italian coachbuilder (who also clothed the Miura), until one of the design team members asked why it couldn’t be made to drive. They fitted a Lancia Fulvia engine found in a local scrap yard and tried unsuccessfully to get a meeting with Lancia with a view to making a production version. Undeterred, boss Nuccio Bertone drove the Stratos across Turin to Lancia’s HQ where he was stopped at the security barrier, which he promptly drove under. The ensuing commotion brought Lancia’s top brass to the window, and the rest is history. The production Lancia Stratos wasn’t a great commercial success (unsold cars sat for years in showrooms) but the rally version it homologated became one of the most successful in history. The Zero remained with Bertone until they closed (featuring in Michael Jackson’s 1988 film ‘Moonwalker’) and was finally sold at auction in 2011 for €761,000. It now lives in an appropriately futuristic LA hilltop home.
#ufo #stratoszero #flyingsaucer #alienlanding #bertone #thefutureishere #turningcircleofjupiter #justflyit
@simonkidston
