Auto ID #163 FINISHED!

[Harry P.]

Remember, don't post any hints or answers here. PM me with year, make, and model.

The answer: 1989-91 Autech Stelvio

[Matt Bacon]

Harry... you need to empty your PM inbox!

bestest,

M.

Edited June 1, 2015 by Matt Bacon

[Harry P.]

Harry... you need to empty your PM inbox!

bestest,

M.

Oops.

Done.

[Jantrix]

Oh man is that ugly. That makes the Aztec look like the belle of the ball.

[matthijsgrit]

Why would one even want to TRY to sell this???

Or buy....??????

[Ace-Garageguy]

If this was the April 1 installment of Auto ID, it might make sense.

[otherunicorn]

Some things are best left undiscovered.

[Zandmann]

Somebody's been eating too much mushroom soup, the wrong kind of shrooms...

[Pete J.]

[mikemodeler]

It has to be a long lost cousin to the Aztek!

[Deano]

The winner of this year's Klingon Kruiser award?

[Harry P.]

This week's car is a 1989-91 Autech Stelvio.

http://bringatrailer.com/2014/09/14/one-of-200-1991-autech-zagato-stelvio/

Who got it right:

Matt Bacon

jaymcminn

Ace-Garageguy

Baduick 13

[dw1603]

There is no way you'd get this one unless you already knew what it was. The styling screams Zagato, the furniture and fittings are pretty obviously Japanese (and it is right hand drive). No combination of "ugly","Japanese" or "Zagato" searches threw up any clues. I'm on holiday in Normandy and I've blown a fortune on roaming charges without getting near it. The most frustrating thing was as soon as I read "Stelvio" it all came back to me. The information is all in there somewhere, but it's getting increasingly difficult to retrieve it.

Best wishes,

David

[Matt Bacon]

...without wanting to sound smug (OK, maybe a bit... ;-P) it just screamed "80s Zagato" at me, and I Googled "1980s Zagato design" and there it was. It does look a lot like his Aston Martin project of the same era (in all the BAAAD ways). The thing that gets me is that this was a SERIOUSLY expensive car, and it looks, just.... horrible.

;-P

bestest,

M.

[matthijsgrit]

This one can be found when searching for something like "Japans ugliest car" or something...

4 REAL!!!

[otherunicorn]

I thought of searching for "single-vent wheel". If I had, I would have found the thing.

I searched for JDM, and coachbuilt. Unforuntately, I did not search for them in the same search. "JDM coachbuilt coupe" finds it.

By the time I thought of those, I had already timed out on my self imposed limit, and had used reverse-image-lookup (i.e. threw in the towel, called it my loss) to prevent me from wasting any more time looking for it.

[jaymcminn]

Knew it from a Jalopnik article published some time ago. I respect Zagato for designing something different and distinctive, and I respect Nissan for having the guts to build it. Having said that....Ugh. just ugh.

[Lovefordgalaxie]

I have a old magazine with some pictures of a red one. That car had the rearview mirrors inside that carenage on the hood, even tough some of them had actual cameras there, transmitting images to a small screen on the dash. What was kind of odd, and one could fit a proper technicolor camera on that hood "eyebrows". Other than that detail, the car is not that ugly. Want to see something really ugly, google Gurgel X-15. That thing is ugly at square.

[Ace-Garageguy]

...without wanting to sound smug (OK, maybe a bit... ;-P) it just screamed "80s Zagato" at me, and I Googled "1980s Zagato design" and there it was. It does look a lot like his Aston Martin project of the same era (in all the BAAAD ways). The thing that gets me is that this was a SERIOUSLY expensive car, and it looks, just.... horrible.

;-P

bestest,

M.

That's pretty much how I found it too, as I explained to Harry early on. It definitely looked Italian to me, and reminded me of some of the Zagato design work done in the early '90s. I image-searched '90 and '91 Zagato, and there it was in all its horribleness.

Hard to believe they built 200 of these things, supposedly.