As purveyors of rare, oddball or downright quirky Italian cars, we have to admit to being suckers for a “Special” or “Limited Edition”. If there’s some sort of numbered plaque plastered onto the dashboard or they’ve painted the wheels a different colour as a tenuous tie-in to an obscure brand of coffee machine, we’ll want to own it.
In fact, we were at the head of the queue back in the late 1990’s, handing over a premium sum for a nearly-new Fiat Coupe 20V Turbo Limited Edition. We bought in hook, line and sinker to the marketing spiel promising “exclusive” features and performance upgrades (translated as an ugly leather jacket in the boot and a strut brace under the bonnet). We also remember all too clearly the soreness when the 20VT Plus arrived in showrooms just a little while after; looking very familiar to the supposedly exclusive ‘limited-run’ LE’s.
Has that experience dampened our enthusiasm for a conceited Special Edition dreampt up by an ambitious PR person, though? Definitely not. Read on below as we count down five of our favourite Italian oddities from over the years.
Alfa Romeo Niki Lauda Spider
It may not have resulted in the highlight of his extraordinary F1 career, but when Niki Lauda joined the Brabham-Alfa Romeo team in 1978 the markets saw an opportunity. The S2 Spider had already been around for 8-years by this time, but with few other truly sports-oriented models in the line-up it was deemed the perfect candidate for a garish Special Edition to celebrate the new partnership.
Launched on April 2nd 1978 at the Long Beach Grand Prix (where Brabham also unveiled their revised BT46 racecar), the great man himself paraded the Niki Lauda Spider #001 around the California street circuit. Differences over a standard Kammtail spider were few, and limited to the purely cosmetic - with each based on SPICA-injected 2000 Veloce underpinnings. The only colour available was Carman Red (514), decorated with the recognisable blue-and-white livery which stretched over the unique ducktail spoiler (a precursor for the Aerodinamica S3 perhaps?). You also got a few trinkets like the wing mirrors, natty little wing badges and an individually numbered plaque on the dash. Only 350 of these were built, exclusively for the US market it seems, but it’s not all that rare to see one still pop up on sites like bringatrailer.com.
Does it really do justice to either the Alfa Romeo Spider or Niki Lauda? Nope. Do we still like it? Yep, ‘cos spoilers and stripes and stuff.
FIAT STILO SCHUMACHER GP
Another F1 great who may feel a little short-changed with the model chosen to carry his namesake is one Michael Schumacher. Following his exemplary season of 2004 in which he broke records for the most wins in a season (13), most consecutive driver’s championships (5) and delivered Ferrari their sixth consecutive constructor’s championship, did the FCA bigwigs pay homage to him with an extreme track-focused Enzo perhaps?
No, it was with the poorly selling family hatchback Fiat Stilo of course! Joking aside though, we do have a soft-spot for the chunky little Stilo here, particularly when it comes in 3-door, 2.4 20V Abarth, 170bhp mode. Which, luckily, formed the basis for the Stilo Schumacher special editions. Just 200 of these were built for the UK market in 2005; all finished in Rosso Corsa (285/A) paintwork with a slightly revised bodykit, kick plates and pedals bearing Schumacher’s signature and a plaque numbered from UK001 up to UK200.
If you’re thinking that sounds like a pretty shameless appropriation of one of F1’s all time greats, then let us introduce you to the Stilo Schumacher GP. A special edition of the special edition, these were handed over to Prodrive with the brief of turning it into a class-leading hot hatch able to embarrass a Ford Focus ST170 or the then-popular Vauxhall Astra SRI Turbo.
They achieved this by developing a bespoke suspension system made up of Eibach springs with Bilstein front struts and rear dampers, trimming 25mm of ride height from the front and 17mm on the back. Reports at the time suggested this helped revolutionise the Stilo’s on-road performance, particularly when coupled with the extra grip delivered by the GP’s lightweight 18” OZ Superturismo alloys and 215/40 ZR18 Contintental tyres. Add in an extra throaty bark from that torquey 20V lump thanks to a Prodrive developed twin-exit exhaust, and you can consider us well and truly sold.
Lancia Y10 Turbo Martini
No, we’re not trying to be obtuse here. When we think of Martini-liveried Lancia special editions, it’s not the stratospherically valuable integrales which immediately spring to our minds. For us, the Y10 turbo Martini has such an understated cool factor that it should be at the very top of the list when building any dream Special Edition collection.
Sold under the Autobianchi brand in its home market, the Y10 was the replacement for the A112 which, of course, had its own terrier-style hot-hatch version in the form of the 58HP Abarth. The Y10 turbo (strict memos from the press department were sent out stipulating no capital letters were ever to be used on the model’s spec levels; this attention to affected stylistic detail is why we love you, Lancia!) was treated to a blown version of the 1049cc overhead-cam “Brasil” engine. 60mph could be hit within 9.5 seconds and, if you were feeling particularly brave, you could continue on to a top speed of 111mph. It may not sound a lot today, but remember a Mk2 Golf GTI 16v was only a second faster and offered only an extra 18mph on top of this humble little Y10.
The turbo Martini special edition was launched in 1987, hot on the heels of the similarly italicar-lauded Y10 Fila. The Martini connection was illustrated with the famous stripe down the sides, highlighting the iconic, clean white paint work (even the wheels got sprayed in the same shade). The Y10’s quirky black tailgate actually seems to stand out even more coupled with the larger turbo style bumpers with their matt black finish and red piping. The colourful Martini badge is the icing on a very stylish cake, in our opinion.
The turbo model lasted just a couple of years in the range, being replaced with the naturally-aspirated Mk2 GTie in 1989 to circumvent strict new emission rules. As such, the effortlessly cool Martini edition also sadly disappeared. As such, these are an extreme rarity nowadays. We can honestly say that in the years of trawling classic car auctions and shows, we’ve seen considerably more Lancia Delta HF integrale Evo ‘Martini 6’ models in the metal than we have the humble Y10 turbo Martini.
Who knows, maybe there’s one hiding away in a barn somewhere just waiting for us to unearth it?
Fiat “Kung Fu” Panda
I think the Fiat Panda, in all its numerous iterations, has to hold the record for the most special editions in history, doesn’t it? For a while in the early nineties it seemed like barely a week could pass by with out some new version being launched with another snazzy go faster stripe and a chaotic interior colourway. Just reeling off the top of my head I can think of the Panda Fizz, Panda Dance, Panda Bianca, Panda Fantasia, Panda Tacchini, Panda Italia 90 (a very close contender for this list itself, actually) and I could go on. But, the one that stands out more than any other at the moment is the third generation Kung Fu Panda tie-in.
I suppose, technically, we’re cheating a bit here as the model on display at the 2016 Geneva Motor Show never actually went on general sale anywhere, which makes it more of a concept car than a special edition…but just look at the level of madness!
With Kung Fu Panda 3 being released around the same time, Fiat had a TV ad running across Europe and obviously decided to eke every last drop of publicity out of the deal with Dreamworks. So they built this one-off Kung-Fu Panda model, which surely must claim the title of the Best Headrests Ever?
The car’s exterior was treated to a bizarre two tone colour scheme pairing matt-white paintwork with a sort of velveteen black wrap. This also surrounded the headlights, giving the car distinctive Panda-eyes. Inside, each terrifying headrest included the face of a different character from the film and the dash was painted with a bamboo scene. On the last day of the Geneva show, it was actually auctioned off with all funds being donated to Conservation International, an environmental charity who promised to use the money to “preserve the habit of the other Panda”.
So, this insane Fiat Kung Fu Panda is still out there somewhere. It will depend on your own views whether you think this is a good or bad thing.
c̶h̶r̶y̶s̶l̶e̶r̶ LANCIA DELTA S-Series “Man Of Steel”
We’re among friends here so we don’t need to mention the fact that the third-generation Lancia Delta was badged as a Chrysler, right? Good. We will not be dropping that particular C-bomb again.
What some of you might not know, however, is that the UK got a genuine one-of-a-kind Delta III inspired by the launch of the Superman film, Man of Steel in 2013. Something of a ploy to publicise the new ‘S-Series’ spec-level, with its unique styling flourishes courtesy of MomoDesign, a unique version of both the Delta and Ypsilon were created to be given away, for free, as a contest prize. On top of the standard S features, this unicorn also received one-off ‘Man of Steel’ badges, bespoke carpet mats, a Superman style key fob and, interestingly, the SatNav system was upgraded with some Superman style additions (we’d love to know exactly what this was? Krypton maps?).
There was a big national push behind the competition, including features in the Sunday Times newspaper, but finding pictures of this actual car itself has been pretty difficult. It seems that the car still exists, however, as it was actually registered as a specific model and still shows up on tools like howmanyleft.com. This also indicates that it’s a 1.6 Multijet diesel model which is not neccessarily what I’d imagine Superman driving. Clark Kent, perhaps, but not the caped man himself.
Bizarrely, the one-off Ypsilon Man of Steel version shows up with two examples still registered on the road…so we’ll keep hunting for the truly rare Delta. None of that common-as-muck one-of-two for us, thank you!