ROME – Giorgio Moroder marked an era in international dance, electronic and pop music. From Flashdance to Top Gun, passing through three Oscar awards, Moroder – born in 1940 in Ortisei – has collaborated, composed and produced songs by Barbra Streisand, Britney Spears, Chaka Khan, Donna Summer, Janet Jackson, Nina Hagen, the Sparks, David Bowie, Freddie Mercury and Daft Punk, just to name a few of the names on his wall. But the life of our undisputed king of music at a certain point went beyond seven notes and synthesizers, as only true talents can do.
At the end of the Eighties, the producer took part in the creation of an icon of beauty, style and power: exactly 35 years ago, Moroder, who now lives in Los Angeles, actively participated in the design of a dream supercar, which he himself he subsidized to the point of personally investing almost 7 billion lire, or around 9 million euros.
It was 1989 when the first example arrived, a car designed to compete with the Lamborgini of the time: here is the Cizeta V16T, a supercar with the silhouettes and style of the renowned Italian brand. All thanks to the collaboration between Moroder, the former “Lambo” engineer Claudio Zampolli, who had participated in the birth of the legendary Miura, and the award-winning designer Marcello Gandini.
The Cizeta – renamed the anti-Diablo but which, it is worth clarifying, is absolutely not a Lamborghini – today is a legendary car and above all unobtainable because only 12 examples left the factory, produced until 1994. Example number 1, for example, it has the name of the “creator” imprinted on its stringy tail: Cizeta Moroder. Car sold in 2022 at an auction in the USA for one million and 363,500 dollars, equal to one million and 245 thousand euros.
Here are the characteristics of the engine, created with a view to recreating or, better yet, beating the performance of Lamborghinis: what makes the bodywork fly – equipped with four retractable headlights with large shark-type side air intakes – is an engine capable of exciting . Under the bonnet are the 540 horsepower of the 16-cylinder V engine, with acceleration, for those times, of Formula 1. Less than 4 seconds to reach 100 per hour, with a top speed of over 330 km/h. h.
But certain dreams often don’t last, in ’94 the financial situation of the house worsened significantly and sales dried up. The final blow to the Cizeta came, in the end, due to the high costs and delays in granting approval from the strict US Motor Vehicle Authority.
In the five years of production of the car, whose list price at the time exceeded 800 thousand dollars, the Sultan of Brunei received the lion’s share, purchasing two examples.
However, the word “end” is not yet part of the history of the iconic automobile. Today the Italian entrepreneur Antonio Mandelli, who purchased Cizeta Automobili SRL a few years ago, has brought the brand back to life, aiming to revive the legendary supercar. Production is expected to begin in 2025, with a new two-seater chassis and an updated version of its engine.