Here Are 15 Of The Funkiest Cars I Saw While In Italy

Location: Milano

Most major cities in Italy have automotive exclusion zones, areas denoted as Zona Traffico Limitato (ZTL), requiring special access permits to enter. The intent of these ZTLs is to reduce congestion and the pollution that is eating away at the statues and facades of the centuries-old buildings in the cities.

The most efficient way to get around these ZTLs is in a microcar — the Wicked Weasel bikini of the automotive world. The tiny Estrima Briò is one such micro-ride. Looking for all the world like a golf cart that went on Atkins, the Briò is notable for three main factors: it’s built in Italy, it is currently the smallest microcar on the market, and it has a removable battery that can be charged separately from the car.

Cars like this are in the same class as mopeds and are restricted to a 45 kph (28 mph) top speed. On the plus side, the Briò is claimed to be able to do 100 kilometers (about 62 miles) between charges. It offers seating for two very close passengers — or perhaps conjoined twins — as well as up to 300 liters of cargo space in the back. To accommodate that, the fully enclosing bodywork has been designed with the appearance of a hydrocephalic spider.

Location: Milano

If riding two-up side by side isn’t your cup of Amaro, then the Renault Twizzy is your tandem-seat wonder. Another fully electric city car, the Twizzy offers the same seating arrangement as an F-14 Tomcat fighter jet wrapped in a design that looks eerily like a flayed Terminator.

Not only has the Twizzy been in production for over 11 years (2012 — 2023), but in 2012, it earned the title of the best-selling plug-in electric car in the European market. Over the course of its entire model run, nearly 30,000 Twizzys (Twizlers?) have found buyers. The basic “Light Quadricycle” model has a 4Kw electric motor powering the rear wheels, giving it a top speed of 45 kph. A “Heavy Quadricycle” edition with a 17 Kw motor can reportedly do 80 kph. That sounds terrifying.

The major benefit of the Twizzy is its size, which is less than eight feet long and, even more amazing, only a hair over four feet wide. Those diminutive dimensions mean it can be parallel parked or just slotted curb-endicular in even the smallest of spaces.

Location: Milano

All microcars tend to be cute, but they don’t get cuter — or likely more structurally innovative — than the Citroën Ami Electric.

Not to be confused with the Ami of the 1960s and ’70s, which was more couture than cute, the electric Ami went into production in 2020 and represents minimalism at its finest. In case you want to see an Ami in action, the always hilarious and unflaggingly knowledgeable Robert Dunn reviewed one for his Aging Wheels YouTube channel. He loved it.

While much like the other ZTL-conforming microcars in certain aspects, the Ami Electric is unique in that its front and rear body panels are interchangeable, as are its doors. That does mean that while the passenger door opens in traditional fashion, the driver’s door does so suicide-style. That’s just like the driver’s door on a Rolls-Royce Spectre. Fancy!

The most common color on the Ami (I saw literally dozens of these things) is a matte blue/gray. This gives the quadricycle the wonderful appearance of an oversized pill bug.

Location: Milano

Holy crossover episode, Batman. I caught a Cygnet in the wild!

I’ve seen a few of Aston Martin’s oddly endearing adopted Toyota iQ before, but only ever at car shows. I’d never before actually seen one out driving on the road. That all changed while walking through Milan, and it was just as magical an experience as you might imagine.

Introduced in 2011, the Cygnet was Aston Martin’s attempt at a joke... er, a car that could aid the company in its attempt to comply with the European Union’s newly enacted fleet fuel economy standards. Priced at over €30,000, the Cygnet didn’t find enough buyers to make a dent in Aston Martin’s fuel mileage numbers or sales. Production was discontinued in 2013.

At least one made its way, not just into a buyer’s hands, but all the way to Italy, where it apparently is still making the rounds and looking quite bold doing so.

Location: Milano

Top Gear magazine once described the roof structure of Citroën’s C3 Pluriel as “wacky.” That’s because, as unobvious as it might be in this picture, the C3 Pluriel is a versatile multi-position convertible.

The Pluriel is a supermini that echoes the ethos of Citroën’s classic 2CV with its small size and retractable fabric center roof section. The Pluriel, however, goes its role model one better by having removable pillars and glass, allowing for fully convertible driving. The downside? When removed, there’s no place in the car to store the roof pieces, and leaving them behind can prove problematic if the weather inconveniently turns south or if you have to park on the bad side of the tracks.

As you may recall, Clarkson, Hammond, and May attempted to catapult a Pluriel back to France across the English Channel in the “We Don’t Like or Understand French Cars” episode of The Grand Tour.

Location: Siena

OK, I know what you are thinking: that’s not a Delta. Let me assure you, it most certainly is. It’s just a Lancia Delta that you may have never seen before since it never reached the same level of reverence in the automotive zeitgeist as did the first generation.

The real reason I wanted to share this twofer with you all is that the Lancia and the Renault Megane parked next to it have some of the funkiest butts in all autodom. I mean, just look at them! These are the sort of cars that would get Sir Mix-a-Lot salivating like a burger-bound Homer Simpson.

Of the two, the Lancia is the newer design, the last of the Delta line having entered the market in 2008 and bowing out due to underwhelming sales in 2014. The Megane, on the other hand, debuted its second generation with that gloriously weird back end beginning in 2002. Renault sadly replaced it with the decidedly non-funky third-generation in 2008.

Location: Siena

Before arriving in Italy, I expected the country to be filled with Italian cars and little else. I mean, it’s not just a major industry for the country but also a source of rabid national pride.

Imagine my surprise then in discovering that, while Italian cars are numerous, equally so are the wares of other members of the European Union, as well as those of Japan and South Korea.

This Opel Tigra TwinTop is one of the most interesting German cars I came across while on my trip. The hardtop convertible is based on the Corsa supermini but offers a level of panache and that bougie retractable top that the Corsa lacked. Adding to the TwinTop’s international flair, the car was built by the French coachbuilder Heuliez and got its power from either an Opel petrol engine or an available Fiat diesel.

Location: Lucca

One of the first really older cars I saw in Italy was, appropriately enough, a Fiat 500. It was perhaps even more appropriate to find the car parked inside the palisades of the ancient city of Lucca, just north of Pisa. Originally an Etruscan settlement, the walled city of Lucca has been famous for millennia. It was the site of the Lucca Conference that, in 56 BCE, created an alliance between political leaders known as the “First Triumvirate.” More recently — a lot more recently — the city earned fame as the birthplace of composer Giacomo Puccini. Today, it’s best known as the city of 100 churches. According to a banner I saw flanking the grand piazza, this summer, the city will be hosting a concert by another musical legend, Duran Duran.

None of that matters to the little Fiat, however. This is the “L” or Lusso model, which Fiat introduced in 1967 as a way to add a bit of luxury to its low-level offering. There’s nothing really fancy about the car, a fact that shows just how basic the lower models truly are. Still, in a lovely shade of sky blue over a burgundy vinyl interior, this one is a fitting accompaniment to the ancient walled city where it was parked.

Location: Montecatini Terme

Beauty, it has been said, is in the eye of the beholder. Many people find beauty in unconventionality. Barbra Streisand’s nose and Cindy Crawford’s mole are two well-known examples of this.

When it comes to cars, few are as unconventional and polarizing as the first-generation Fiat Multipla. Now, this isn’t the original 600-based Multipla, which was weirdly endearing on its own accord. Instead, this is the amazingly audacious and innovative Brava-based MPV of the late nineties and early aughts.

Designed in-house under the leadership of then Chief Director of Design Roberto Giolito, the Multipla for a new age is sufficiently commodious to seat six. That’s in an overall length shorter than the Brava upon which it is based and is made possible by positioning the seats in two rows of three across. This is all encapsulated by a greenhouse of epic proportions. As polarizing as the design is — I mean, just look at it — the little wagon has many defenders. No less an authority than Top Gear magazine anointed it as Family Car of the Year four years running.

This one, in what is arguably an unflattering shade of blue, was a surprise find for me. It seems that the Multipla didn’t multiply in great numbers in the Tuscan region. I did see another one while on my trip, but it was the later, far-less funky design. I hope you enjoy this one’s aesthetics as much as I do.

Location: Montecatini Terme

As with the original Cinquecento, Fiat sought to bring motoring to the masses at the lowest possible cost with the ’80s Panda. To do so, they naturally turned to one of Italy’s famed design houses — Giorgetto Giugiaro’s Italdesign.

Giugiaro’s take on the Panda called for flat glass in every window opening, sling-style seats, and a simple three-door hatch design. Fiat took those simple blueprints and ran with them in the creation of what is arguably one of history’s great cheap cars.

Of course, the cheeky little Panda found fans outside of simply those raiding the couch cushions and skipping avocado toast to buy them. Additional models at higher price points were naturally introduced over time. One of those was this Panda 4X4, which is parked next to a much more modern take on the 4X4 car theme, a Range Rover Evoque.

Fiat turned to Austria’s Steyr-Puch for the entirety of the Panda 4X4's drivetrain, electing only to provide the car’s 48-horsepower 965 cc four-cylinder engine from the FWD Panda 45. The 4X4 was introduced in 1983, three years after the first salvo of Pandas hit the market.

Along with the 4X4 hardware underneath, the Panda 4X4 offers a unique embossed hatch and a raised ride height. I don’t know about you, but I’d sure take it over that Evoque.

Location: Montecatini Terme

I have to tell you, being in Northern Italy for a week, I fully expected to see A LOT more Ferraris than I did. Hell, I had to go to the Ferrari Motorsports Museum in Maranello to finally get my fix. Word to your mother, though: they do have a pretty solid café at the museum.

I spotted this Testarossa on the main drag of the spa town where we were staying, parked at the curb just like a normal car. While that makes it an already unique find, it earns additional points for being one of the early — ’85-’86 — cars with the “flying mirror” on the driver’s door.

That mirror, along with the engine radiators housed in the hips make for a car that is fully half a foot wider than its already portly predecessor, the 512 Berlinetta Boxer. As you can see, it’s a bit too fat for the parking space it’s squeezed into.

Location: Montecatini Terme

Another total surprise was this late 1990s SSangYong Korando I came across on my way out for more sightseeing. The Korando was parked in a “not-a-spot” next to the curb with an indication under the wiper that its owner is due to receive a hit to their wallet for the infraction.

The first version of the Korando, released in the early ’80s, was nothing more than a Jeep CJ7, built under license by the South Korean company, Keohwa after AMC bailed on the country due to financial troubles. Keohwa was bought by SsangYong Dong-A Motor in the mid-’80s securing the Korando nameplate for the larger company.

The second generation Korando, introduced under the SsangYong brand in the late 1980s. It wasn’t Jeep-based, instead using a shortened version of the SsangYong Musso’s frame. For power, it offered a choice of petrol or diesel four and five cylinders built under a license from Mercedes-Benz.

These trucks were built in Poland as well as in South Korea so it’s possible this Korando isn’t really that far from home. Wherever it was built, its owner needs to do a better job at finding parking spaces for it.

Location: Milano (again)

On our last night in Milan, my friends and I had dinner at Bouecc, a traditional Milanese restaurant that, as of 2023, has apparently been in business for 325 years. No, the bread was not stale.

The Renault 4 that I spotted down a somewhat dark side street on the way to that ambrosial meal is not quite so old. One of Renault’s most successful models, the 4 entered production in 1961 and continued with little change until its demise in 1992. Over the course of that 31-year run, nearly 8 million were built.

As evidenced by the wide plastic grille that encapsulates the headlamps, this 4 was built after 1978. Under the patina’d blue paint and grey trim, lives a FWD chassis with an appropriately small four cylinder engine and torsion bar suspension at each end. I would have looked more closely to see if I could tell the engine size, but it was cold and I was hungry.

Location: Milano (yet again)

Another car spotted on our way to dinner, this Peugeot 304 Cabriolet is one of my favorites from the trip. I’ve seen a number of 304s in my home town of Los Angles, California as friends put on an annual “Best of France and Italy” car show in the valley.

I’ve not, however, come across one sporting these handsome alloy wheels. More typically, these cars are fitted with steel wheels adorned with chrome center caps.

First introduced in 1969, the Pininfarina-designed 304 proved a sizable hit for Peugeot, lasting until 1980 when it was replaced by the 305. Much to its deficit, and to ours, that successor lacked the 304's handsome two-door convertible body style.

I didn’t have time to wait around for this 304's owner to arrive so I could offer a hearty chef’s kiss to them in honor of their excellent choice in automobiles. I imagined them returning, keys in hand, capably juggling a bottle of Chianti, and a couple of baguettes, with a dangling “Messis Summa” clutched between pursed lips. Feel free to create your own 304 fantasy as the mood hits you.