I Think It's Time To Remember What A Real Super Car Is.

If it looks like this blog is in danger of becoming about three new cars and their adventures around the Nurburgring, fear not. I really do know more about cars than what’s broken over the net in the last five minutes and to prove it, I’m going to tell you about a car that I’d rather have than any of the super coupes currently setting pulses racing with their ‘ring times. I’ll tell you of a car so exclusive that only ten were ever constructed and so convoluted in its gestation that it involved not a motor company, but a synth-musician as its major backer. Interestingly it’s a car that still claims to be built today, though at $650,000 it’s unlikely that many more will find homes.

I first encountered the Cizeta V16 in an issue of Car and Driver magazine. It was in the middle of an article that told the then current stories of twenty-four super cars. It was an interesting list ranging from the Bugatti EB-110 to the Bentley Nepal (a car that became the Continental Type R) and contained many cars that were clearly going nowhere. There, wedged in between the Mclaren F1, the Jaguar XJ-220 and oddballs like the Yamaha OX99-11 was a beautiful sports car that seemed almost impossibly wide at the rear.

It resembled a Lamborghini Diablo in some of its proportions (as it should seeing as it was based on Marcello Gandini’s initial design proposal for that car), but it was more angular, and eschewed the Diablo’s tunnel-roof for the better visibility of a more conventional, sloping rear window. It also was said to have a V16 engine made from two V8s on a common crankcase. At the time I didn’t know what that meant exactly, but it was at least four more than anything else in the article, which made it “better” to my power figure addicted, pre-teen mind. The article had a guide to pronouncing the names of the cars within, it said, “Che-say-ta Mow-Row-Der.” I was intrigued.

Unfortunately the company that was making the V16T was anything but healthy. I didn’t know that the “Moroder” part of the name stood for euro-synth icon Giorgio Moroder, or that he and the company would soon part ways. The car was beautiful and the V16 engine had a huge cache, but turning that into a production reality was to prove too difficult. There was little more said of the car in that period. It went on sale in 1992 and left quietly soon after. Except for the occasional “What ever happened to?” blurb in a magazine, the Cizeta was no more.

I always regretted that. It seemed like such an interesting car. It was wide and exciting and the V16 put out a then staggering 560bhp (I know, that’s family sedan money these days). It was capable of 205mph, and would get to 60 from rest in about 4.0 seconds. This was great stuff. But first there was a recession, then the Mclaren F1 and then there just weren’t super cars anymore. Now of course there are again, but anywhere the Cizeta was legal to drive it isn’t anymore, and it never was here, which makes it all the more strange that they’re now being made to order in Garden Grove California.

I’ve seen the car in person and I can tell you that it not only covers an amazing amount of ground, but it looks a million dollars doing so. I haven’t had the pleasure of driving it so I can tell you nothing of that experience, but I have heard it run, so I can tell you roughly what it sounds like when God clears his throat. I’ve sat in it as well and I can tell you that while it is small, it’s my favorite automotive cockpit of the moment. It’s not that it feels super-special it’s that it feels right. The dash isn’t a stripped out board with a race-grade data-logger stuck onto it, nor is it an over designed sweep full of fetishistic details and knurled, diamond-cut this or satin-finish that. It’s a simple pod with big gauges, covered in high-grade leather that sits the proper distance from the occupants and displays information that’s needed. The rest of the cabin follows suit.

Is it really worth the near $700K asking price? No, of course it isn’t, no car is. But as super cars go, this one has something that most others don’t anymore, real exclusivity. It wasn’t intended to be that way. I’m sure that in the beginning, Claudio Zampoli, Cizeta’s founder, intended to build a good number of the cars for sale. At this point however, the lack of success in selling may be the car’s biggest selling point.

No, on second thought, nothing will ever replace that engine, and the noise it makes, as the Cizeta’s best feature. I have no idea how it handles, though the suspension (unequal length wishbones with coils and inboard Koni dampers) is clearly inspired by the likes of 80s group C cars. I know even less about what it would be like to own. I only know that the one time I heard it fire up in person, a shiver went down my spine, and I couldn't think of anything else for the rest of the day. To me at least, that's what a super car, is supposed to do.