How Those Hard-To-Sell Cybertrucks Could Be Converted Into Rad Dakar-Rally-Style Lancia Zeros

You’ve undoubtedly all read about Tesla Cybertrucks stacking up in parking lots, as demand hasn’t quite been what many hoped for when the vehicle debuted in 2019. But I have an idea that leverages the Cybertruck’s angular shape, blending it with early 1970s Italian design-brilliance to the create a true automotive genius that will fly off the shelves. Fly!

White smoke might mean “a new Pope” to most people, but not for Autopians. To us, such emissions mean that your engine’s head and block have done a “conscious uncoupling” at the gasket, and it’s not a good thing. Let’s say that your rusty mid-2000s Subaru’s flat four has now turned into a smoky chocolate milkshake machine as they often do; you need to find a solution that is commensurate with the value of this piece of crap. Naturally, that explains why you’re now walking out of Autozone with a bottle of STOP LEEK Instant Head Gasket Repair.

As you open the bottle to dump into the radiator, a genie that looks and sounds remarkably like Jason Torchinsky appears in front of you. “Hey, you big dummy” says the snarky genie, “it’s your lucky day.” He then proceeds to tell you that he’ll grant you one wish: to make your favorite concept car that never went into production a reality for you to own and drive. “Woh, this is great, but what a difficult task,” you think. “So many options to choose from nearly a century of flashy show cars. What do you select?”

The answer comes from Italy around 1970.

I Did It All For The Nuccio

Despite all of the funky Tokyo show madness over the decades and GM Motorama gems from the past, the auto show concept cars I’d almost certainly chose to turn into running, driving things all hail from Turin about fifty years ago. More specifically, I’m talking about products from the house of Bertone, and most would have been visions of the recently departed Marcello Gandini.

Typically, nothing looks more dated than yesterday’s view of the future, yet for whatever reason these Italian concept cars from the seventies hold up quite well since they seemed to foresee tomorrow from a planet other than earth. You could drop them into a futuristic sci-fi film made today about a Mars colony and they’d fit right in. Many of these were, in fact, running objects with powerplants from high-revving contemporary Alfas, Ferraris and Lancias.  I’ll refresh your memory with a few of them.

By some accounts, the Alfa Romeo Carabo concept of 1968 started it all. Built on a 33 Stradale chassis, this set the tone for the angular extreme wedge of concepts for the next decade (it’s very appealing to me even though I’d be hard pressed to not take the standard Stradale that likely gave its life for this):

The Lamborghini Bravo appeared in 1974, and it was far cleaner than any of the production Sant’Agata cars we got in the seventies:

How about the funky 1976 Ferrari 308GT Rainbow with a retractable targa top?

I’m not sure if the team working on Star Wars saw the 1976 Alfa Romeo Navajo concept, but it sure looks like an X-Wing Fighter from the series with its “pop out” headlights (that retracted sideways) and the absurd “loop” rear wing. So damn cool:

Another favorite of mine is the 1978 Lancia Sibilo with a brown exterior that disguised the greenhouse by using similar-colored tinted glass and no visible seam between the glazing and lower bodywork (and cheese grater-style openings for the windows):

I like this so much that I paid homage to it a while back by making it into a continuation version of Volvo’s 1800ES sport wagon as an alternative to the Lincoln Mark III-like Volvo Bertone we really got.

So many of these things to select from, and I’m just scratching the surface.  Maybe the best way to decide is to figure out which one you couldn’t imagine living in a world without. You know, there are cars that you respect, the ones you love, and then there’s the one you buy. For me, that last one’s got to be the Bertone Lancia Stratos Zero.

All Less Than Zero

Competition often breeds superhuman achievements. After Bertone gave the world that Carabo concept car, rival design house Pininfarina upped the ante with a number of insane concepts in 1970, like the Ferrari 512 Modulo, and ultra-low machine that didn’t even look like a car:

How could anyone top that? Marcello Gandini likely didn’t say “hold my beer, y’all.” No, he probably took a drag off his cigarette held elegantly between thumb and forefinger, then flicked it into a Milanese gutter and quietly walked back to Bertone studios, full of resolve.

That Modulo was indeed slick, but what Gandini came up with simply blew it away. It looked a bit like it was designed by a person who had never seen a car before: there was no real way to determine exactly where the roof, doors, and windows began and ended, or even existed. There are wedge-shaped cars and there are just plain wedges. The Stratos Zero was the latter.

Enough talk: imagine walking down a European street in 2025 and this goes by:

Video Above by Francesco Tesser/Wikipedia 

Or being at a St. Moritz classic car show and this thing shows up:

Now think about how this might have looked in 1970 to the average person. In fact, in this famous photo here, you can see for yourself:

It’s an incredible piece, and even today it seems to make current supercars seem like they aren’t trying hard enough, or trying too hard.

The functional aspects of the Zero are as breathtaking as the styling, if not totally practical (or practical at all, really). The Lancia logo is actually a release latch for the windshield “hatch” (is it a “hatchfront” instead of a “hatchback”?).

The black rubberized hood surface is actually designed for you to walk on to enter into the cabin. Once seated, the steering wheels pivots down into place and you close that massive glass windshield/roof.

The engine sits beneath a triangular-shaped louver panel that flips open sideways to access the V4 sourced from a wrecked Lancia Fulvia HF1600 Rally car (I’d always thought this thing had the Ferrari Dino V6 that was used in the production Stratos but sadly no).

Ventilation and visibility out the side is provided by ground-to-roof windows, the top portion of which slide back to open (though I can imagine that thing is an oven even in European summer temperatures).

Inside, the instruments are mounted in a flat panel next to the driver, looking very much like a flat screen you’d have in a modern car. In the Zero, it’s actually a mechanical simulation of a digital screen, not unlike the instruments in late eighties General Motors pickup trucks. If that “screen” were dead center instead of to the left of the driver, this thing would look a lot like the inside of certain cars named after the inventor of alternating current power systems. No, the Zero is not right hand drive; that display is on the driver’s side panel (which would be the door panel on a “normal” car).

That, my friends, is the concept car you’d want as a reality; sadly, there’s a catch.

FEAR This

“Here’s the thing” says the Torch-looking genie to you, the hapless Soobie owner. “I can give you something that looks a lot like that concept of your dreams, but it has to be body kit for an existing car or truck”.

Come on, you didn’t think that a genie from a STOP LEEK bottle was going to give you exactly what you wanted, did you? Even so, this is a major bummer. Considering that I just did a post on unsightly fiberglass kits for Fieros, I can’t imagine how a Stratos Zero is going to realistically work as a body panels stuck onto anything at all.

Genie Jason is philosophical: “You know, that Stratos Zero is pretty cool, but can you really see a big American guy like yourself daily driving that thing in Chicago traffic and snow?” Well, he has a point. “There’s a reason why those lifted Dakar style supercars are popular now.” Yeah, you kind of can’t stand those things but you’ll hear him out. “I bet I could get the body to work on a four or five passenger four-door with a huge trunk, even something like a pickup bed.” This you have to see; you’re skeptical but a free car is a free car.

Genie Jason waves a wand that on closer inspection turns out to be one of those black plastic coffee stir stick turn signal levers from a seventies Bug. Suddenly in the parking lot appears a big stainless-steel angular vehicle which, according to Jason, some people actually purchase and drive around with that bare flat metal visible. They must be blind, so it’s a good thing that, according to Jason, this thing is sort of self-driving. Next, a copper-colored fiberglass body reminiscent of the Stratos Zero forms over that thing that purports to be a pickup truck.

“Here it is: your new StratosFEAR.” The Torchgenie says that the body panels are all drilled or adhesive mounted right onto the donor car’s skin; no surprise since you can smell the fiberglass and liquid nails from thirty feet away. “Some of the stainless-steel trim panels had already fallen off of the donor car anyway”, quips Genie Jason, shrugging.

Ventilation slots allow for moisture trapped between the original and add-on panels to drain out and dry up, but it’s not like the existing stainless steel below will ever rot anyway. Here’s a rough drawing of the StratosFEAR body kit components and how they attach to the donor vehicle which I forget the name of but that I’ve heard isn’t selling very well. The only original panel that gets pitched is the donor vehicle’s hood; metal extensions bolt onto the front bumper and new components allow for a much more useable frunk area.

To keep the lines of the Stratos Zero, there are some tricks needed. For example, the donor car’s front frameless windows don’t clear the curved fiberglass cant rail, so when opening the door the glass will need to drop several inches and then roll back up when you shut the door (though on many cars with frameless glass the windows roll down at least a bit anyway to reseal themselves every time you pull the handle). The comically massive single windshield wiper on the donor car could park under the fiberglass. The horrendous angular fender flares on the donor machine are ripped off and the body underneath vinyl wrapped over. Massive tires and wheels (the rears offset with spacers) complete the look.

Here’s that animation that you’ll ask for:

In the back, much of the body of the original donor car (included the rear bumper, license plate, backup lights and side marker) is still visible, albeit covered in a black vinyl wrap and a dimensional tailgate trim panel with Stratos Zero-like “loop” taillight. There’s a huge trunk that, by retracting the cover on top, can carry tall objects not unlike a pickup truck. You can’t access the area from the sides of the StratosFEAR, but you couldn’t on the vehicle underneath the fiberglass skin either; it surprises me that the firm building the donor car is able to sell any of them at all.

The actual Stratos Zero has a blatty old-school Italian car sound you can hear in those videos above that’s a bit incongruous with the futuristic styling. This electric drivetrain donor car for the StratosFEAR is really a perfect fit for the sci-fi looks, especially when you pop it into reverse and it makes that otherworldly noise.

Inside, the donor car’s overly stark looks-like-a-mockup-waiting-for-a-dashboard interior also works with the Stratos Zero ethos. We’ll install seat covers that mimic the Stratos Zero’s cube-shaped upholstery and add black perforated trim to the dash that comes with the kit. Yes, those fiberglass body parts outside block some of your vision but the guy that developed the donor car doesn’t think you need to see out anyway. Lastly, the donor car’s screen will get a graphic on its central LCD screen that looks like the fake digital gauges of the old Stratos Zero. It’s as if technology has finally caught up with the old Bertone concept.

Genie Jason has a sort of sheepish grin on his face. “Well”, he barks out, “I can tell you’re a little disappointed, but it beats a sharp stick in the eye, right? Anyway, I’ve gotta get back into another STOP LEEK Instant Head Gasket Repair bottle; I can sense that there’s a guy with a Northstar-powered Caddy that’s needing me”. Yeah, I’ll bet. You turn away for a second and he’s gone.

Saved By Zero

Let’s look on the bright side: at least the air conditioning in this orange monstrosity is probably gonna blow cold in a way your old head-gasket-challenged Forester hasn’t in years. You pitch the empty STOP LEEK bottle into the trash and walk back to the StratosFEAR; this is not what you expected at all. You kind of hate it, but the usefulness compared to the original Zero that you know and love is undeniable.

Any dislike you’re experiencing for this odd mashup is apparently not shared by the general public. There’s already a crowd coming out of the Autozone and stores nearby, while cars on the street are nearly crashing into each other as they stare at the orange wedge. “Is that from the future?” some guy in a trucker hat with a toothpick in his mouth asks. How are you supposed to tell him that it’s from 1970? You can’t, because Bertone’s future from half a century ago is something that will always seem like twenty years ahead.