Zagato Zele

Zagato is the Milan coachbuilder of Alfa Romeo, Aston Martin and Ferrari bodies.source 2source 3 In the early 1970s it was short of coachbuilding work; Below the Radar goes further and says it faced bankruptcy by 1972, a claim no better source has been found to support.source 4 Elio Zagato’s answer was a complete change of direction: a city car for short trips, with only the driver aboard.source 1source 5 It grew from an earlier Zagato electric prototype, the Milanina, of which no details have been found.source 1

The prototype, the Zele 1000, was shown at the 54th Turin show in November 1972, as a two-seater for city traffic and pollution, by the account of La Stampa at the time. RM Sotheby’s and Below the Radar say it was first shown at Geneva that year; both may be true, Geneva coming in March, but the Turin date has the period newspaper behind it.source 1source 6source 4 At the same Turin show Fiat showed its own city-car study, the Fiat X1/23.source 7source 8

Built because of the oil crisis

The welcome was lukewarm, and only a few were made to order. Then the oil crisis of 1973 revived interest in electric cars, and in the summer of 1974 the Zele, now one of the oil-crisis electric microcars, went into small-series production, according to La Stampa’s report that October.source 1

There were three versions, and the number in each name was the motor’s power in watts: 1,000, 1,500 or 2,000, on 24, 36 or 48 V of batteries.source 1source 2 Under the glass-fibre body was a welded steel frame with parts from the Fiat Nuova 500 and the Fiat 124, and the motor was chained straight to the differential, with no gearbox.source 2source 6source 9 Speed came from switching voltage instead. A four-position hand selector and a two-position pedal gave six speeds forward and two in reverse.source 1source 2source 9 NASA’s engineers described it exactly: the hand switch stepped through 12, 24 and 48 V, with positions for reverse and for charging; the pedal’s first position fed the motor through a resistor and the second bypassed it. To go faster the driver lifted off, moved the hand switch up a step and pressed the pedal again.source 9 The 2000 had a boost switch too, which weakened the motor’s field for more speed and less pull.source 2

Flat out, a Zele did about 40 km/h (25 mph), and the 2000 about 48 km/h (30 mph). Italian Wikipedia claims a range of 70 km for the 1000 and 100 km for the 2000; English sources say about 50 miles (80 km).source 1source 2source 3source 6source 9 Seven colours were offered, from orange-red and brown to metal-flake blue.source 2 In France, Willam sold the Zele under its own name, as it did its other Italian imports (see the Willam City).source 10source 11

Sales were slow, and production stopped in 1976, after about 500 cars.source 1source 2source 3 Zagato went back to coachbuilding. Below the Radar’s story of a “Nuova Zele” in 1981 and production to 1991 appears in no other source, and here it is treated as an error.source 4

The Elcar Corporation of Elkhart, Indiana, was formed in response to the 1973 oil crisis to import the Zele, and sold it in the United States as the Elcar.source 3source 12 The Lane Motor Museum gives its price as US$4,500, a Czech article as US$2,645; they may be different models or years.source 3source 13 Elcar also built a stretched four-seat prototype, the Elcar Wagonette.source 1source 2 It was one of the few electric cars on general sale in the United States in the mid-1970s, alongside the CitiCar, and Popular Mechanics road-tested it in August 1975; but sales were slow.source 2source 3source 13

In April 1977 NASA’s Lewis Research Center tested an Elcar 2000 at the Dynamic Science track in Phoenix, Arizona, one of 17 vehicles in a government programme to measure the state of the art in electric cars; the report thanks Elcar as the car’s representative in the United States. It reached 48 km/h (30 mph) and went from rest to 32 km/h (20 mph) in 8 seconds. The Masco batteries supplied had deteriorated, so NASA fitted Astron Powerstar batteries instead, and one range test was stopped when a thermal overload breaker tripped twice in 29–31 °C heat. The car had no regenerative braking, no heater and no demister.source 9

Fiat’s Centro Stile showed the X1/23 at the Turin show of 1972, the show of the Zele’s prototype, as a shape study for a city car. It was a two-seater, 2,642 mm long, 1,510 mm wide and 1,340 mm high, and the 1972 car probably had no powertrain at all.source 7source 8

An electric version followed, in 1974 by Italian Wikipedia and 1976 by English. Its DC motor, of 13.5 CV or 14 kW by the two accounts, drove the front wheels, with regenerative braking, and nickel-zinc batteries of 166 kg sat at the back. It weighed 820 kg in all, and its range was about 80 km; its top speed was about 70 km/h, or 45 mph (72 km/h) by English Wikipedia’s figure.source 7source 8 Only one was built, and it is kept at Fiat’s Heritage Hub in Turin.source 7source 8

No survivor count has been found. A powder-blue 1975 Elcar 2000 is in Nashville’s Lane Motor Museum, and the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles has a 1973 car that it lists as the Zele 1000 or Elcar 1000.source 3source 5

On 5 September 2018, in the Weird & Wonderful sale in London, RM Sotheby’s sold a yellow 1974 Zele 1000 without reserve for £11,500, against an estimate of £5,000–10,000. It had stayed with its first owner for 11 years, until 1985, then passed through two private collections, and was restored nut and bolt in 2011.source 6 No owners’ club has been found.