There is unusual design that will stop the traffic - literally any traffic, anywhere - and then there is the ItalDesign Aztec. Wacky, jaw-dropping and cartoon-like, it’s hard to believe that the 1988 ItalDesign Aztec came from the same pen as that which drew the minimalist, essentials-only lines of the original VW Golf. And yet it was the legendary Giorgetto Guigiaro who designed both. The Aztec was part of the 20th celebrations of his firm, ItalDesign. It’s like nothing else before or since and we love it for that.
We’ll start with the obvious. The ItalDesign Aztec boasts separate seating areas - cockpits, really - for driver and passenger. Driver gets custom Nardi steering wheel and every piece of electronic gadgetry available in the late 1980s, while passenger makes do with a dummy wheel carrying an early trip computer. Getting in is not without its complications: doors - complete with glass inserts - open in the ordinary fashion, while the upper part of each cockpit pivots upwards. Clip on a roof to each cockpit for wet weather driving. That’s if you get away from the motoring paparazzi.
Concept, said ItalDesign, was led by space age ideas rather than mere automotive ground-based notions. With that in mind, it may be just as well that there’s a large carbon fibre wing at the rear to stop the ItalDesign Aztec from taking off. Service panels to each side remain more conceptual than functional, but the idea was that once an appropriate code was punched in, they’d open to reveal tool kit and hydraulic jack system among other options. As befits a concept car these were meant to be glimpses into an automotive future. It was a future that never really happened, but it’s the optimism that impresses.
Original ItalDesign Aztec concept shown at the Turin Motor Show in 1988 was non-running, but Japanese entrepreneur Mario Myakawa bought the rights and made 25 running examples of the ItalDesign Aztec of which this remarkable vehicle is number 12. Power comes from a five-cylinder turbo-charged unit more usually found on an Audi Quattro, mated to a four-wheel drive system designed for a Lancia Delta Integrale. Top speed, for the particularly daring, is said to be 150 mph.
If you’re bold enough to want this highly distinctive piece of coachbuilt history for your collection, there’s good news. Broad Arrow Auctions have the ItalDesign Aztec up for sale. The auctioneers will have had a hard time in suggesting how you might bid, given the vanishingly rare nature of this beast. They’ve gone high: with an estimate for the 1988 ItalDesign Aztec of between £214,000 and £253,000. You’re unlikely to have this chance again, so if show-stopping is what you’re after, what is there to lose?
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