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16 cylinders, a music legend as an investor and a famous designer: the Cizeta V16T combines all of this
Photo: Jasen Delgado / Sothebys
Under the hammer:
A Cizeta V16T, built in 1993, which only ran 983 kilometers.
Why bid?
Who doesn't know the problem: You really love driving a Lamborghini, but now many people have a plane like this and you don't really attract attention anymore.
In that case the Cizeta V16T is just the thing for you.
Joking aside, it is no coincidence that the car is so similar to the Lamborghini Diablo, it is in a sense an over-Lamborghini: even more cylinders, even rarer, even wackier.
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This can be seen in the way the car was created.
Claudio Zampolli, former Lamborghini engineer from Italy's "Terra dei Motori" - the home region of Ferrari and Lamborghini around Bologna and Modena - sold and serviced super sports cars in the US metropolis of Los Angeles in the 1980s.
But that wasn't enough for Zampolli, he wanted to create a sports car that would surpass all others and bear its own name - more precisely, its initials.
Because in Italian they are pronounced “ci” and “zeta”.
The recipe for his sports car was also clear to Zampolli from the start: a five-speed manual gearbox, an engine with 16 cylinders, installed in the center, but as in the Lamborghini Miura, across the direction of travel.
The »T« in the name of the car does not stand for turbo, but for »trasversale«.
The engine of Zampolli's creation was unique: six liters displacement and 64 valves are distributed over the 16 cylinders.
The power is tapped in the middle of the installation across the direction of travel.
The unit has around 540 hp and is said to have helped the car to a top speed of 328 km / h.
However, it was extremely wide and in order to pack it appropriately, Zampolli turned to a designer who shaped the sports car taste of people around the world like no other: Marcello Gandini.
He created the rally wedge Lancia Stratos, the DeTomaso Pantera and the Lamborghini cars Miura, Countach and Diablo - which is particularly similar to the V16T when viewed from the front.
Due to the beefy rear end that has to accommodate the V16, the side air inlets that are reminiscent of those of the Ferrari Testarossa and the more detached cockpit, the Cizeta looks much more present than the Diablo.
And also in the comparatively similar front, the V16T trumps the Diablo, as with the number of cylinders: Instead of two pop-up headlights, Zampolli's creation has four of them in the best Trumpf-Stichting manner.
The unusual investor with whom Zampolli was ultimately able to realize the project goes well with all of these automotive superlatives.
At the end of the eighties he convinced the music producer Giorgio Moroder to support the development of the car financially.
The unusual cooperation began promisingly, in 1988 the car was presented to the public for the first time and was enthusiastically received.
However, the partnership with Moroder broke up after the presentation of the first Cizeta-Moroder prototype.
However, Zampolli did not let that stop her and went on alone, now only under the name Cizeta.
According to the auction house RM Sotheby's, nine specimens had been produced by 1995, including the now offered blue specimen with chassis number 101.
The car was ordered from a car dealership in Singapore on behalf of the Brunei royal family.
However, the right-hand drive V16T with blue interior never arrived at this one.
After completion, the car was first used as a photo model for press photos in Italy and as an exhibit at the Geneva Motor Show in 1993. In March of the same year, the blue V16T finally left the plant in Modena for Singapore - the city-state in Southeast Asia for more than 25 years to leave.
Why that was so is not known.
The car stayed in the car dealership in Singapore until 2020, with a mileage of just 983 kilometers, which, according to the auction house, it is said to have almost completely unwound during tests for the Cizeta plant.
Due to the involuntary storage, this V16T escaped the tragic fate of two black specimens, which were also acquired by the Bruneis royal family.
These were irreversibly converted by Pininfarina and equipped with Ferrari twelve-cylinder engines.
One of these cars remained dismantled, the other is now in a US museum.
The lonely V16T waiting in a car dealership in Singapore remained the only one of the three that is still in its original condition today.
Surcharge!
The auction house RM Sotheby's is auctioning the Cizeta V16T on January 22nd in Scottsdale, Arizona.
A price of around 550,000 euros is expected.
If that's too much for you, you still have to go to the game console: In several parts of the Gran Turismo series, the V16T can be driven virtually.
Icon: The mirror
