Italdesign has accumulated so much silverware over the years that keeping all the trophies shiny and dust-free is pretty much a full-time job. The most recent, in fact, is a GQ Car Award for the fabulous, fascinating and ever-so-slightly nuts PopUp Next concept – its vision of an autonomous, congestion-beating "car drone".
But Italdesign isn’t just scoping out a future filled with flying cars, it’s also just created a car that looks like it should be able to fly. Not only that, but the entire rear end engine cover detaches as a single piece in such a way that it distinctly resembles the sort of superhero apparatus that Tony Stark might be familiar with. It’s not what it was designed to do, but it still looks fantastically cool.
As does the rest of the Zerouno, in fact. But it’s controversial: the internet apparently hates this thing, not least because it costs €1.5 million and is heavily based on the much cheaper Audi R8. But dissing it for these reasons misses the point spectacularly. There will only ever be five Zerounos and they were all sold before the project was even officially confirmed. This is a car aimed at the stratospheric end of the scale, designed for people who want to provoke not just a "What is it?" response, but also a full-throttle, multi-cylinder WTF? As in the early days of automotive coach building – it’s called carrozzeria – this is about creating something no one else has, a car whose sense of mystery eclipses the humdrum likes of Aston Martin, Ferrari, Lamborghini or Porsche. Everyone knows what they are, after all. You’re unlikely to ever bump into a fellow Zerouno, unless you’ve planned it. Look at some of the cars that enliven the lawns of the high-end concours events, such as Villa d’Este and Pebble Beach: now fast-forward to those same gilded palaces in 2080.
It also marks an important new step for Italdesign. This is one of Italy’s great design institutions, founded in 1968 by the man who many in the business regard as the single greatest car designer of all, Giorgetto Giugiaro, and his business partner, Aldo Mantovani. (Italdesign’s greatest hits include the original VW Golf, Fiat Panda and the DeLorean, among countless others). Giugiaro was close to the erstwhile boss of the Volkswagen Group, the mercurial and mysterious Ferdinand Piëch and sold a majority chunk of his company to VW in 2010; a few years later, he cashed out altogether.
His hand-made Italian loafers are big shoes to fill and the Zerouno is the first in a planned series of profile-boosting Italdesign-branded automobili speciali. It sped from drawing board to reality in just 14 months. As Italdesign’s head of design, former Alfa Romeo and Lamborghini designer Filippo Perini, says, “We wanted to do a limited series car to create a demonstrator of the capability we have in the company. The truth is, it’s not well enough known outside. We sold the five units at the price we set and this attracted different OEMs beyond the VW group. The GT-R 50 project with Nissan is an example. That happened because of the Zerouno: they saw that we could do it. It takes us back to the roots of carrozzeria: we can create the idea, but we also have the means to deliver for the potential client.”
Italdesign calls it “simultaneous engineering” and it should help promote its business to potential clients worldwide. With a total of 1,100 employees, this is a big operation and the VW mothership is keen for it to expand its customer base beyond the comfort zone afforded by the group. Even as it slows down economically, China is still a fertile hunting ground and Asia is also booming – indeed, Italdesign won the business to create the design language for Vietnam’s first domestic car company, Vinfast. (David Beckham was paid a rumoured £6.5m to turn up on Vinfast’s stand at last year’s Paris motor show: evidently they’ve got the funds to go with the ambition).
Perini also reckons that the car as a concept is about to undergo a radical change: autonomous cars like the PopUp Next will zoom around shiny cityscapes, while the ultra-high net worth elite will still hanker after something fast, expensive and unique to play around with at the weekend. Which is where the Zerouno comes in – car as pure entertainment.
Being able to draw on related resources is what makes the Zerouno possible. It’s based on the modular aluminium chassis used by the Audi R8 and the engine is the same as its naturally aspirated 600bhp-plus 5.2-litre V10, also found in Lamborghini Huracan. The all-wheel drive hardware is also identical and the car is TUV-homologated (in other words, it passes all the necessary crash safety legislation). The Zerouno’s cabin extensively reworks the donor structure in carbon fibre and Alcantara and the graphics on the main display are bespoke, yellow and blue to match the colours of Turin. For such a low-volume car, it feels impressively well made – as you’d expect given the outlay.
The Zerouno obviously has to be more than a reheated Audi and although there are clear connections it does feel notably different. As well as sitting 40mm lower than the R8, there’s an extra and welcome rawness to the way it moves down the road. The suspension and dampers have been revised, so it’s firmer and handles in such a way that you soon forget you’re in a car whose aerodynamic body features many pieces of carbon fibre you absolutely don’t want to damage. Then again, there’s no point pussy-footing around and it’s pretty clear that the Zerouno isn’t the sort of car that springs unwelcome surprises. The seven-speed ’box is fast-shifting and brilliantly responsive, the steering alert and linear. On the other hand, it could work as a piece of abstract expressionist sculpture.
Five Duerta open versions are in the works right now, for even more sensation. Italdesign is also promising a Zerodue very soon, perhaps at the Geneva show in a few weeks’ time. After that, there should be something new roughly every 24 months. Bring it on, we say.
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