Fiat 500 Zanzara by Zagato

The Fiat 500 Zanzara was a 1969 concept car created by Zagato. Its name is the Italian word for ‘mosquito’. It was designed by Ercole Spada, who had worked at Zagato from 1960 and in 1969 went freelance, and it was built on the Nuova 500, the rear-engined Fiat city car designed by Dante Giacosa and launched in 1957.

Spada removed the roof and doors and gave the car new fibreglass front and rear ends, turning it into a small retro-futuristic buggy with a sporty leather-trimmed cockpit. The chassis and the two-cylinder, four-stroke engine were unchanged, giving 18 CV and 33 Nm in a car weighing only 440 kg. The micro sports car is described as having been finished in lime green and later repainted red.

At least two Zanzaras are known to exist: one belongs to Spada himself and the other to the collector Claudio Mattioli.