Face it, what does the $9,000,000 '62 Ferrari 330 have that a Malaise Era Alfa or Lancia doesn't have? Wait, don't answer that! Instead, consider this: for around 1/9000th the price, you can have a sporty machine from the very same country!

What kind of car can you get for $1,250 these days? Maybe a 15-year-old Sentra, speckled with shopping-cart dings and filled with the smell of countless spilled McDonald's chocolate shakes? Or an Olds Cutlass Ciera with a potato for a gas cap and Bondo-and-rust clusters falling off on every speed bump? How depressing! But wait- what if we were to find you a genuine Alfa Romeo GTV for that price? A car with just 58,000 miles on the clock, because more than half its life has been spent sitting in a garage… waiting for you to rescue it? No, really! Here's a "garage find" '74 Alfa Romeo GTV (go here if the listing disappears) for next to nothing. It appears to be complete, and the seller says the "motor and tranny seem to be somewhat clean and oil free," which we hope isn't referring to their innards. Who knows, it will never might start right up with a simple tune-up! You might need to do a little metal cutting and pasting once you do have it running, because the seller admits that it has "all the usual rust problems of an alfa," and the registration paperwork will require negotiating labyrinths of bureaucracy you never imagined existed a bit of work, due to the car's "unknown title." Is an unknown title worse than a missing one? Never you mind about that stuff- just buy this project and start enjoying the benefits of an Italian basket case daily driver in about 10 years no time!

Everyone loves an Alfa, of course, but what would Fabio drive? A Lancia, of course! You can still buy Fabio's Appia, which hasn't dropped in price by a single lira in the last couple of years, but you might not have the pecs and/or hair to pull off looking cool in a cute little sedan. But buy this '75 Lancia Beta (go "http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/jalopnik/2009/11/75_lanciabeta-ss.jpg"/>here if the listing disappears) and you'll find your image on the covers of paperback bodice-rippers within weeks of getting it running. Of course, that might be akin to cleaning the Augean stables a couple of weekends of work, considering that it needs a "new timing belt to run and a little TLC" (translation for those of you who don't speak Craigslist-ese: "Something terrible is wrong with the engine, including what you hope will be just the timing belt"). But hey, Mr. or Ms. Thousandaire, imagine yourself behind the wheel of a genuine Italian sports coupe and it will all seem worthwhile.

We can thank Van Sarockin, rogue trebuchet for suggesting the tears-to-our-eyes amazing treble scoop setup that Alfa Romeo installed on the Giulia TZ1 in 1964.
But that wasn't the only great hood scoop Alfa Romeo (or maybe it was all Zagato's doing; I'll need to consult with Alfa expert Conrad Stevenson to get the story) put on their race Giulias during this period. How about this hinged setup, which may have provided inspiration for Chrysler's Air Grabber designers?

Image source: AllSportAuto

Based on the Continental GT Speed, the GTZ offered a more pronounced overbite than the standard car, as well as more jewel-like light clusters. And now it has found its way to the city by the bay. Representing the ultimate aspiration of European unity - an Italian body draping the German/English underpinnings - the sliver over forest Zagato maintains the standard car's hoontastic 6.0 litre W12, which should be good for near 200 mph trips to the Gray Poupon concessionaire.

While the plebian Continental GT will set one back a mere $179,200, the asking price of this stile infuso version is a cool 1.3 million.

That means it might be time to start scrounging between the sofa cushions for loose change if this Bentley floats your boat. And hey, they're accepting trade-ins!

Check it out here or over here if somebody has already snapped it up. Hat tip to j money!

The grill is changed, and the corner lights are frenched in.
The rear received the most attention (as you would expect from the Italians) with a rounder boot and more shallow backlight. The traditional double bubble is there too.

Interior upgrades include special upholstery and dash trim.

We've got a couple of deals from the Deep South here, an Italian 3-fer and a Brazilian-German 2-fer, and they're priced like it's 1865 all over again! Saddle up the trailers, carpetbaggers!

I've been doing my best to interest wannabe 24 Hours Of LeMons teams in the idea of racing a Lancia instead of, say, an RX-7 or noch ein Scheiß-E30, but so far none of them seems to understand the sheer Italian awesomeness of Lancia iron. Why, Jeremy Clarkson himself selected a Lancia Beta to drive across Namibia. That's bad news for LeMons, but great news for you, because this '81 Lancia Zagato in Chattanooga (go here if the listing disappears) has a clapped-out-Kia-grade price tag of only 700 bucks. But wait, there's more! You see, you don't just get the Lancia with this deal; you also get a pair of Fiats, including a 124 Spider and a "sedan" of some sort. A 128? 130? Polski 125p? Don't waste time agonizing over the identity of the Mystery Fiat Sedan, because you also get a vast hoard of rusty-ass crap precious spare parts, including four engines!

You say you don't want an instant Italian junkyard on your property? Normally we'd say you need to get your priorities straight, pal, but passing up the Lancia/Fiat Bonanza means your garage still has room for this L'Automobile Ventura with bonus VW Type 3 Fastback deal (go here if the listing disappears). The price is double that of the Lancia/Fiat deal, and you only get two cars… but such cars! The Brazilian-made L'Automobile Ventura was a fiberglass-bodied sports car based on an air-cooled VW pan, but don't go mixing it up with the Puma GT; the Ventura came with a pancake Type 3 engine with crank-driven fan, so it has room for storage in the rear. As for styling, who could resist a car with lines that pay homage to the Nissan 300ZX, Jensen Interceptor, and Chrysler Laser? Exactly! But hold on there, because the Ventura isn't all you get here; the seller purchased a '72 Volkswagen Fastback as an engine donor car for the regrettably non-powered Ventura, but then didn't have the heart to sacrifice the Volks. That means the yard next to the double-wide has two too many vehicles, and they've got to go! The Fastback's engine is in good shape, except for the minor issue of non-functioning fuel injection, and it even has the super-rare (and nonworking) air-conditioning option. That's right, VW buyers in 1972 were able to drain 20 or so of the car's 65 horsepower by hitting the AC button! All tires are rotten. No mention of rust. The lack of title on the Ventura might make for some comedic moments at the DMV, but we're sure the DMV clerks will be quite understanding about your unregistered, undocumented orphan car from a country they've probably never heard of. Thanks to Nagruv5150 for the tip!

“I took this shot today, looked at it, looked again…and nothing. All I know is that the grille is from a V8 Vantage.”

The Aston Martin lands in my inbox with an embarrassing thud. I have spent hundreds of working days in my life sucking up information about cars. Yet apart from the obviously Aston grille and the lamprey-like lines, the car is a blank page. But why the words, go look for yourself:

“I don’t have a clue,” is what I reply to my friend Máté’s illustrated letter.

My reply is not exactly true. I do have the faintest of clues, not enough to base a reply on, but enough to get started. A pattern is vaguely recognized.

As readers of Malcolm Gladwell’s first second book Blink will recall, after absorbing prodigious amounts of information, the mind is able—in situations related to the nature of said information—to make quick decisions based on apparently very little input. This is how professional tennis players react to a serve too fast to interpret, how racing drivers can run competitive laps on an unfamiliar track and how an excellent friend of mine can look at a brownish spot in the sky a thousand feet away and say it’s a Black Kite. An old female, to be specific.

For some reason best left to future decades of neuroscience, cars styled by the Italian design consultancy Zagato are very easy to pattern-recognize even after limited exposure. And exposure is necessarily limited by the small number of Zagato cars on the road. One of the best known examples is Aston Martin’s DB4 GT Zagato of 1961. I have seen it exactly once, in Italy:

Zagato’s fluid yet butch lines stick to the brain like ground effect cars to the racing line. And while Máté’s Magic Mystery Aston had a whiff of Zagato about it, what it looked most like was a kit car.

Can’t be, he says. “I happened to photograph it on the most expensive street in the world,” and he directs me to the Wikipedia page of The Bishops Avenue in London.

Oh, that. The street you move to when you’ve made it, made it big, and you want the world to know about it. Zoned from a piece of land that used to belong to the Bishop of London, the Avenue has become a favorite spot of the nouveau riche, particularly if those nouveau riches have come from the likes of oil, guns and naked women. When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1991, the House of Saud ruling neighboring Saudi Arabia snapped up ten of the Avenue’s 66 mansions. This is a street that used to be called Millionaire’s Mile, but which has lost that title to become Billionaire’s Boulevard. So yes, the Aston is probably real.

One of the residents of The Bishops Avenue is Hassanal Bolkiah, the Sultan of Brunei, and this is when you can sort of expect a light bulb to go off in the automotive brain—not mine, unfortunately—because you all know what Hassanal Bolkiah does with his tiny fiefdom’s oil riches: buys all the cars in the world and then some. Our very own guide to the cream of his crop will help you along with a gray F40, a Lamborghini LM002 safari wagon and five Dauer Porsches. The latter are street legal Le Mans race cars from the turbolicious Group C of the 1980s which accelerate like ballistic missiles all the way to 250 MPH.

A significant portion of Bolkiah’s fleet was not purchased but built, and alongside the Ferrari sedans and shooting brakes is a set of three Aston Martins from 1997 called the V8 Vantage Special Series I. They are based not on the current V8 Vantage but the bigger car with the same name produced in the 1990s and they look exactly like the DB4 GT Zagato of 1961, only bigger.

Apparently, the Sultan likes his supercars the 60s way. But coachbuilders are not exactly fond of reproducing earlier designs atop modern machinery. And through another flutter of Bolkiah’s bottomless wallet, the Zagato people got to work again on the V8 Vantage, operating this time not as the codex copiers of Mediaval Europe but as coachbuilders. What they came up with was the V8 Vantage Special Series II, a modern, very Zagato, thoroughly menacing Aston: the car Máté photographed.

Wicked performance is suggested by those curves and the Series II doesn’t disappoint: its 5.3-liter twin-supercharged V8 makes 600 HP and can launch the two-ton coupé to sixty in 4.4 seconds. The aerodynamic wall arrives at 205 MPH. Zagato built a total of three cars, two for Bolkiah, one for his brother Jefri.

This is where the story would normally end but just as Máté confirmed his haunch with a link to Supercars.net, Google unveiled Street View for London. I raced for a large screen, hooked it up to my Mac, and spent an hour and a half combing the length and breadth of The Bishops Lane to no avail. I found a lone Ferrari F430 but looking for custom-built Astons has a way of turning production Ferraris into Crown Victorias.

But then what did I expect? What’s the chance for a car built to thunder along motorways to sit in one place, waiting for both the Street View Opel and Máté to amble by? Before giving up entirely, Máté went for a last look. Parked on the driveway, obscured by a lamppost and fecund foliage, he found our car at last:

So on to you now, Street View ornithologists. Descend on London and dig for cars with stories. And yes, I want my photo of the TVR Cerbera Speed 12.

Photo Credit: Máté Petrány (V8 Vantage Special II), Larry Parker (DB4 GT Zagato), 2007 Tony Murray Photography/AFP/Getty Images (Toprak Mansion interior), AstonMartin.com (V8 Vantage Special I)

The official press release touts this 999-unit limited-run two-seater's Italian-designed looks and the ability for the South African company, Perana, to bring the car to market for European buyers by mid-year. They also tout the sub-four-second 0-to-62 MPH time and the lower-than-rumored $64,000 pre-tax prospective price. For this you get a sharp sports coupe with an LS3 V8 good for approximately 440 HP and 400 lb-ft of torque.

A fast, attractive and affordable sports car designed by Zagato and powered by American muscle is so appealing it hurts. They may be smart to surround the Geneva Motor Show Perana stand with armed guards.

Press Relase: Perana Z-One
Zagato is launching an exciting World Premiere on the occasion of the 2009
Geneva Motor Show: the Perana Z-One (Zee-One).

The sports car Perana Z-One signals the first collaboration of the Milanese
Coachbuilders with a South African Vehicle Manufacturer: Perana
Performance Group.
The Perana project is the result of Zagato's 90 year-long expertise in
constructing fully functional running concepts.
Virtual reality development has been integrated from inception, effectively
eliminating the need for the traditional styling model and enabling the
prototype to be completed in less than 4 months by the South African team.

Design Concept:

As the latest descendant of the Zagato sports car family, Z-one is designed
with full blooded Zagato form language.
Reflecting this pure passion from this brand new sports car specialist, the
proportion and volume of Z-one is even tighter than usual sports car styling,
accentuated by couple of long and dynamic curves with keen edge which
visually integrate some important design features like the air out-lets.
Surfaces defined by those cutting edges are even more sculptured
maintaining the modern Zagato line which we have been developing for a
decade.

Initiative:

Following in the footsteps of Zagato's long tradition of masterfully designed
cars, the Perana Z-One is no mere dream car, but a thoroughly practical and
feasible production proposition that is expected to be available for sale to
discerning European buyers by July 2009.
The Zagato Design Centre has styled the Perana Z-one to ensure it is built as
a limited series production car. Sales will be limited to 999 cars per annum
within Europe to assure exclusivity and to commemorate the 90 years of
Zagato design.
Complying with Euro 4 emission legislation, this value proposition is expected
to be launched at the introductory price of under 50.000 Euros, before taxes
– an irresistible and highly competitive offer.

Technical Development:

From the innovative tubular and box section chassis to the exciting interior
styling, the Perana Z-One is a concentration of advanced design and
engineering. Fully certifiable for the road, this ultra high–performance, front
engined sports coupé uses a powerful 6.2 litre V8 engine that drives the rear
wheels. This genuine 2-seater coupé, enjoys the benefits of almost 50/50
weight distribution allowing for exhilarating, balanced and predictable road
manners.
Zagato is launching an exciting World Premiere on the occasion of the 2009
Geneva Motor Show: the Perana Z-One (Zee-One).

The sports car Perana Z-One signals the first collaboration of the Milanese
Coachbuilders with a South African Vehicle Manufacturer: Perana
Performance Group.
The Perana project is the result of Zagato's 90 year-long expertise in
constructing fully functional running concepts.
Virtual reality development has been integrated from inception, effectively
eliminating the need for the traditional styling model and enabling the
prototype to be completed in less than 4 months by the South African team.

Design Concept:

As the latest descendant of the Zagato sports car family, Z-one is designed
with full blooded Zagato form language.
Reflecting this pure passion from this brand new sports car specialist, the
proportion and volume of Z-one is even tighter than usual sports car styling,
accentuated by couple of long and dynamic curves with keen edge which
visually integrate some important design features like the air out-lets.
Surfaces defined by those cutting edges are even more sculptured
maintaining the modern Zagato line which we have been developing for a
decade.

Initiative:

Following in the footsteps of Zagato's long tradition of masterfully designed
cars, the Perana Z-One is no mere dream car, but a thoroughly practical and
feasible production proposition that is expected to be available for sale to
discerning European buyers by July 2009.
The Zagato Design Centre has styled the Perana Z-one to ensure it is built as
a limited series production car. Sales will be limited to 999 cars per annum
within Europe to assure exclusivity and to commemorate the 90 years of
Zagato design.
Complying with Euro 4 emission legislation, this value proposition is expected
to be launched at the introductory price of under 50.000 Euros, before taxes
– an irresistible and highly competitive offer.

Technical Development:

From the innovative tubular and box section chassis to the exciting interior
styling, the Perana Z-One is a concentration of advanced design and
engineering. Fully certifiable for the road, this ultra high–performance, front
engined sports coupé uses a powerful 6.2 litre V8 engine that drives the rear
wheels. This genuine 2-seater coupé, enjoys the benefits of almost 50/50
weight distribution allowing for exhilarating, balanced and predictable road
manners.

Specification Sheet

TECH DETAILS

General Data
Curb Weight - 1195 kg
Weight Distribution - Front: 50%
Rear: 50%
Wheelbase - 2540 mm
Track - Front: 1627 mm
Rear: 1570 mm
Length - 4406 mm
Height - 1233 mm
Width - 1924 mm

Accommodation

Seating Capacity - 2

Engine
Configuration - V8, All Aluminium
Displacement - 6200 cc
Power - 328 kW @
Torque - 583 Nm @
Max. rpm - 6600 rpm
Fuel Delivery - Fuel Injection. Electronic, Sequential Port.
Compression Ratio - 10.7: 1

Drive train
Gearbox - 6 speed manual
Differential - ZF Limited Slip

Wheels
Perana / Zagato - Front: 18 x 10J
Rear: 19 x 12J
Tyres
Michelin PS2 - Front: 275/35 ZR18
Rear: 345/30 ZR19
Chassis
Layout - Front/Mid Engine - Rear Drive
Frame - Steel Tube Space Frame
Body - Vinyl-Ester/Glass Composite
Brakes - Front: 325mm
Rear: 305mm
Assist type - Vacuum
Steering - ZF Power Assist
Suspension - Front: Unequal Length A-arms, Eibach springs,
Bilstein shocks, Anti-roll bar
- Rear: Unequal length A-arms, Eibach springs,
Bilstein shocks, Anti-roll bar
Fuel Capacity - 85 litres

Performance

Power/weight ratio - (328 hp/tonne) 240 kW/tonne
0 – 100km/h - sub 4 secs (est)
0 – 160km/h - sub 10 secs (est)
Braking - 38m (est)

About Perana Performance Group
The idea of producing an Italian styled, South African designed and manufactured Super Car was incubated in
late 2007. To give this idea mobility, the Perana Performance Group was created as the entity to bring what
was a concept to where we are today with a show car that enjoyed its world premiere at the Geneva Motor
Show on 03 March 2009.
The Perana factory has a successful manufacturing legacy in producing low volume, high performance sports
cars for a global market.
The demise of the low volume manufacturers around the world coupled with the changes in EU legislation
relating to low volume manufacturers created the opportunity for the Perana Performance Group to launch a
car of true Super Car performance capabilities. The new car which is built at the Hi-Tech Automotive facility is
very much a back to basics, no frills Super Car which demands driver input beyond that required by the
established players in this segment of the market.
With the appointment of the European Dealer network and full production established, the creation of much
needed jobs underscores our commitment to social upliftment. The Perana Z-One also offers South Africa the
opportunity to showcase its engineering and production capabilities to the world at a price hitherto perceived to
be unattainable. There is no car available in the world that boasts this combination of performance and
equipment levels at less than EUR 50000, before taxes.

[Source: Zagato]

We're still waiting for the full press release, but here's what we know — the Perana Z-one is the first fruits of a collaboration between Milanese coachbuilders Zagato and a newly formed South African Vehicle Manufacturer called Perana Performance Group. It'll be built in South Africa as a 999-unit limited-run (as opposed to Zagato's normal 99-unit run) 2-seater coupe. Thanks to a Corvette LS3 under the hood, it'll also be fast — with a 0-to-62 time of under four seconds. The price? Around R750 000 (or around $115,400 $75,000 for those of us who barter in greenbacks).

The Perana Z-One will be revealed officially at the Geneva Motor Show next month, so for the moment, we'll have to make due with the renderings and sketches above. Frankly, if it's this sexy rendered, we can't wait to see what it'll look like in the real-life sheet metal.

The Zagato-bodied Lancia Fulvia Sport was a high-strung, V4-powered, front-wheel-drive, aluminum-bodied screamer, similar under the skin to the Alameda DOTS Berlina. Here's what JSmith53 has to say about his find:

Saw this badboy when passing through the little town of Weston, WV. I had never seen one of these before today. Thought I'd share this with the most awesomest car guys I know. In the last picture, you can see it is parked next to a set of tall doors, one of which was open. Inside there was an 80's model Jaguar XJ, and several (10+) cars covered with blankets. I resisted the urge to peek inside. Parked two or three spaces in front of the Lancia was a Series 3 Alfa Spyder in mint condition, and beside that, parked off the street, was an Alfa 164, also in mint condition. I imagine there was a lot of Italian machinery parked inside, covered by the blankets. I apologize for the small number and low quality of these photos, as I was a stranger in a small town and that made me nervous. After I drove off I kicked myself for not taking more photographs. The interior looked as good as the exterior.

Remember the Lancia Zagato? Of course not, and you Europeans are probably totally confused about that name slapped on what's obviously some kind of Americanized Beta, but enough of them were sold on these shores that it's now possible to obtain two of them (go here if the ad disappears) for just $1,500. One of them doesn't run, due to a "sticky" clutch arm, while the other one runs just fine, other than a slight problem with the fuel pump ("Sometimes you have to jiggle the fuel pump fuse to get it going"), which shouldn't raise even the tiniest red flag among those with experience working on Italian cars. You got lots of extra parts- in fact, sufficient parts to completely fill the bed of a full-sized pickup truck- and that means you should have enough stuff to get at least one of these fine Italian thoroughbreds back into tip-top shape. Right?

Just because a Citroën SM has never lost a PCH Superpower Challenge, does that make this matchup unfair to Italy? What if the Romans had had that sort of defeatist attitude? Why, they would have allowed those barbarians from the north to conquer them in that case... oh, wait. Anyway, we figure two Lancias might have a hope against a car built by a shotgun marriage of Maserati and Citroën, under the administration of two of the best-organized and efficient organizations the world has ever seen: the French and Italian governments! So here we go! My fellow LeMons judge, Herr Lieberman, has found this 1973 Citroën SM for us, and check out that price! Pick your jaw up off the floor, because we're talking about an SM priced well below four figures, and the auction ends in just a few hours. Unless the reserve is set at some absurd height, this might be the cheapest SM in the country! It doesn't quite run, but it's really, really close; once you deal with the engine- which "may be stuck"- and find a new transmission- which is missing- and then hunt down some new hydropneumatic suspension spheres and some other parts, and then deal with all the stuff that goes wrong when an insanely complicated car sits for close to two decades (a car built by the French and Italian governments, remember), and then fix the rusted-through body panels… well, at that point you'll find that you're only capable of composing really unwieldy run-on sentences full of digressions and tangents and you'll need a good stiff shot of absinthe just to drag yourself out to the garage and face your future, each day, until the warm embrace of eagerly anticipated death enfolds you. OK, fine, we know the SM is going to crush the Zagatos, but vote anyway.

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As you can see in the picture above, it's a fender mirror that flares out from the headlights back to the driver's position. While an interesting idea, and we applaud the courageous use of NACA ducts, the executions is awful and the result is unfortunate. Zagato, which has made cars we love to look at sort of whiffed on that one. Even worse, the cost of one of the 200 cars produced was 18 million yen, approximately twice the price of an NXS-R when it debuted. Ouch.
[Grand JDM via JPCNews]

This is the end result, but don't think it's just a one-off. Zagato says they plan on building up to nine units of the classic beauty at a price of $235,000. Don't plan to go Enzo-hunting, because the little streamliner only has 48HP. That means top speed is only 79 MPH. Our first thought is to swap in a turbocharged 'Busa motor (or maybe a modern Ducati engine), but you don't need speed when you've got hand-beaten body panels. Besides, those guys went through all the trouble of constructing 3D models from faded old black and white photographs. You'd think the least we could do is respect the craftsmanship.
[AutoBild]

It might surprise some of you that a company with as storied a racing pedigree as Aston Martin would turn to Italy for help with its then-ultimate road car. After all, the "Aston" in Aston Martin comes from the Aston Clinton hillclimb where founder Lionel Martin had so much success. But remember, the decidedly non-Anglo Augustus Cesare Bertelli (aka "Bert") rescued Aston Martin from the Charnwood family's death grip in 1927. Lucky for us, too, as Bertelli was one hell of an engineer. In the mid-20s he built three cars for none other than Wolfe Barnato. Bert actually won the Rudge Whitworth Biennial Cup at LeMans behind the wheel of a "Bertelli Aston."

After the unpleasantness with the Germans, Sir David Brown continued the continental collaboration when he took over Aston. By the mid-50s, Brown had turned to Carrozzeria Touring to coachbuild the DB4. And why not? Carrozzeria had no only pioneered the Superleggera system (lightweight alloy panels stretched over tubular frame) but had build such humdingers as the 8C for Alfa and the 328 Touring Coupe for BMW. While pretty, the DB4 was just not enough.

So, Aston Martin pumped out the DB4 GT. Power from the Tadek Marek designed 3.7-liter DOHC straight-6 was bumped from 240 to 302 hp. The wheelbase was shortened, which meant that the useless to begin with backseat was gone in the GT. The aluminum was thinner (i.e. lighter) and the headlights were cowled, taking a blind-stab at aerodynamics. And while the DB4 GT was a nice improvement over the "standard" car and did reasonably well on the track, it still wasn't enough. Translation: the DB4 GT couldn't compete with Ferrari 250 GTs. So Brown (presumably) picked up the phone and called Zagato.

With a track record studded with such winners as the Fiat 8V, OSCA 4500 Biondetti, Alfa 8C 2900 and Jaguar XK 140 Z, Brown would have been nuts to call anyone else. Zagato was more than happy to rip the DB4 GT apart and rebuild it. Steel pieces were replaced with aluminum ones and the car was made even smaller still than the GT. Perspex was used in place of heavier glass. The bumpers were ripped off, along with everything that wasn't needed in a racing car. The engine even got re-jiggered to the tune of 314 hp, which in 1960 was pretty boss. Especially in a 2,701 pound whip. But the real legacy of the Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato involves the young designer named Ercole Spada.

Spada, who would go on to design both the Alfa Romeo Giulietta and Giulia TZ, crafted what to my eyes is one of the very most beautiful cars ever. We're talking top 10 here, if not top 5. The DB4 GT Zagato was his first gig. Do I need to mention beginner's luck? Gone was the inherent British slab-sidedness and upright grill. In were sumptuous Italian curves and unrealistically killer detailing. While simple at first, repeated gawking reveals Spada's knockout to be quite complex, especially if you change angles. I notice something new and enticing almost every time. Checkout the fishy-faced hood metal bending over the grill in profile. Pretty friggin' nifty, you ask me.

How'd the Aston Zagatos fare on the track? Not so hot. They could compete, even at LeMans, but the DB4 GT Zagatos were never as stiff nor as lean as the winning Ferraris of the time. The handling needed to tackle the most challenging tracks in the world was just never there. And so what? Because you know that little could matter less on an actual road. Still, if you don't win on Sunday... 25 cars were planned, but due to soft demand only 19 were ever built (though during the dark times known as the 80s Aston Martin completed 4 leftover chassis and three "new" replicas from scratch). For 1960 the Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato was impressive machine only trumped by the very best sports car in the world. For 2008, the Zagato-bodied Aston is without question one of the world's most desirable. I mean. James Bond is cool, but Josepi Bondolini is righteous. Happy Voting.

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The Jalopnik Fantasy Garage, So Far:
RUF RT12 | 1978 Aston Martin V8 Vantage | Honda 1300 Coupe 9 | 1931 Daimler Double Six 50 Corsica Drophead Coupe | Ferrari 288 GTO | Chevrolet Corvette ZR-1 | 1970 Buick GSX 455 | First Generation BMW M Coupe | Bugatti Veyron 16.4 | Ford GT | Citroen SM | Porsche 928 | Jensen FF | DeTomaso Vallelunga | Audi Quattro S1 | Buick GNX | Nissan Skyline R34 GT-R | Honorary Fantasy Garager: The LS1 Powered Rotus | Lamborghini LM002 | Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe | Ferrari 250 GTO | Bentley Speed Six | Talbot-Lago T150C SS Figoni et Falaschi Raindrop/Teardrop Coupe | Porsche 917 | Audi RS4 Avant | Lamborghini Miura | Mercedes-Benz 450SEL 6.9 | BMW E39 M5 | Jaguar E-type | Mercedes-Benz 300 SL | Dodge Charger/Challenger R/T | Toyota 2000GT | Facel Vega HK500 | Voisin C28 Aerosport | Bugatti Type 41 Royale | McLaren F1 | Maserati Bora | Continental MK II | Tucker 48 | Rolls-Royce Phantom

[The Jalopnik Fantasy Garage appears every Wednesday*. Readers vote the cars in or out. The idea is that we'll have 50 cars in our Fantasy Garage, the world's greatest mechanic and endless wads of cash. Would you like to nominate a car for the Fantasy Garage? Write tips@jalopnik.com with the subject line "Fantasy."

*Sorry about last week. New Years and all that.]

Which brings us to today's first contestant: a 1981 Lancia Zagato off the streets of Bakersfield and available to the first cat who rolls up with $1700 in his trembling paws. You'd sure as hell be the only '81 Zagato driver in town if you owned this car, and you'd be sure to wow the ladies with your early-80s Italian style (be sure to get the skinny tie and wafer-thin watch to go with the car). Not only that, it's got the Targa top! According to the seller, it "RUNS EXCELLENT!" Skeptics could point out that even the most insignificant replacement part for this car might as well be made from pure U-235, if one is to judge by the difficulty of obtainment... but hey, where would we be if we paid attention to reason when it came to the cars we love?

Dang, that Zagato is cool, but only the flintiest heart could resist the appeal of a genuine 1974 AMC Javelin, which is ready to roll right into your garage for the bargain-basement price of $2100. Look at that shape! The crazy lines of the front fenders! You might consider losing the 12" JC Whitney leaf spring shackles and getting some rubber that fits inside the fenderwells... or maybe you'd keep it as it sits, in all its property-value-lowering glory. The 304 "RUNS REAL GOOD" and the transmission shifts, but we'd be shopping for a 401 and 4-speed about 12 seconds after taking ownership of this car, anyway. Drivetrain parts should be pretty easy to get, but body/interior stuff will be more of a challenge.

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