1988 Autech Zagato Stelvio

CRAZY JDM #17

This is the Autech Stelvio. It used to be a Nissan Leopard coupe but Nissan's slightly mad in-house tuner, Autech transformed it into this... thing. It's an exotic 'thing' nevertheless, styled by Zagato (when Zagato was drunk) and sold in limited numbers at interesting prices. A little over £100,000 (or $160,000) when adjusted for inflation! So this car was bought by those with more money than sense. And maybe no eyes.



WHY WOULD PEOPLE WITH NO EYES WANT THIS?
Okay, let me elaborate here. It's not the styling that turns away the 'people-with-eyes' demographic - as that's entirely subjective. It's rather something else. That something else is... the door-mirrors, or to be precise - the lack of them. So how can such a car be legal? Well, they're not quite door-mirrors anymore. Not even fender-mirrors. They're mirrors mounted on the bonnet (or hood)! Visibility ends up so poor you might as well not bother looking.
Furthermore, the people who bought this could potentially never drive it. It's just another way to say,
"Look at me, I'm rich!". Although to be fair, it would be best to look away to avoid getting conjunctivitis.
This car does at least have a legacy though. After Zagato 'styled' this, they copied the design and removed all the awkward bits. The result was the quirky but elegant Aston Martin V8 Zagato, and a presumably an enraged Nissan.

HOW FAST?
As fast as a Nissan Leopard V6 with slightly more horsepower attached...
316bhp (rounded from 315.622...)
0-60 in something slightly under the Leopard's 10.6 time
152mph

MORE PHOTOS PLEASE!

WARNING: View at your own discretion.

Behold, broken dinner plates minimalism within art.

Exhibit A: The mirrors! (Annotated by me).

Exhibit B: The same design but actually pretty! (The Aston Martin V8 Zagato).

Finally, I present to you - one of many proposed replacements to the Stelvio. Sadly, the economy's collapse coupled with the end of the Autech-Zagato partnership killed them off. Except to see an article on these soon!

CAN I BUY ONE?
If you're willing to import - I guess you can. It's even past the USA import cap - but would you want to? Also it's very hard to find these in the first place because 'limited production'. Despite that, I did find one on Goo net. And it had depreciated to less than an 8th of its original value. So... Bargain?

CRAZY JDM RATING!

Silly styling? YES

Silly engineering? YES YES (Handbuilt with bonnet-mirrors)

Silly idea behind it? YES YES YES

●●●3/3 A very silly car that also manages to be something really cool and unique.