Disco Supercar
The ’80s were a time of excess; everyone was supporting the conspicuous consumption lifestyle. As Gordon Gecko so eloquently put it “Greed for a lack of a better word, is good.,” which is why the 80s was also a time of extreme supercars, apart from the big brands, there a small group of people who wanted to capitalize on the spending and the supercar boom.
One of the more interesting names to come out of the time was Cizeta-Moroder, founded by a former Lamborghini engineer and the father of disco. It proved to be an interesting match, to say the least, but it actually produced cars, and one of the few is up for auction.
Karissa Hosek/RM Sotheby’s
Cizeta-Moroder V16T
The engineering half of the company name, Claudio Zampolli, who was a former Lamborghini engineer and test driver, relocated to Los Angeles in the 1980s. At first his business revolved around what he knew, servicing and maintaining some of the rarest supercars on the planet, but he secretly harbored a dream to start up his own brand. Giorgio Moroder, meanwhile, was at the peak of his game, heavily credited for being a trailblazer for disco and DJ’ing, and had already won himself three Academy Awards and four Grammys.
Zampolli met Moroder at his Los Angeles exotic car repair shop, and their shared interest in sports cars led to discussions on creating a new supercar. Zampolli was a dreamer, and he wanted to create something that would blow Ferrari and Lamborghini out of the water, so he latched on to the idea of a V16-engined supercar. He mounted that 6.0-liter V16 transversely like the Miura, and paired it with a 5-speed manual gearbox, making 540 hp.
The Cizeta-Moroder V16T also has a very interesting design, penned by legendary (lots of legends involved in this project) car designer Marcello Gandini. The story goes that the V16T’s design was originally proposed to Lamborghini for the Diablo, but the four pop-up headlight look was too extreme and was rejected, but picked up by Cizeta-Moroder.
Karissa Hosek/RM Sotheby’s
One Of One
There is actually only one car called the Cizeta-Moroder; this is because the car up for auction was owned by Giorgio Moroder himself. It is chassis number 001 and was a working prototype that was displayed during the 1989 Los Angeles and Geneva Motorshow. Sadly, the partnership between both men dissolved quickly after due to tension with production.
This led to the other (11) units of the V16T being called Cizeta’s instead of the double-barreled original name. Chassis 001 only has 433 miles and is listed at $1.4 million to $1.8 million on RM Sotheby’s; it will be part of the Monterey Auction on August 15.
Karissa Hosek/RM Sotheby’s
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