There are lots of ideas that sound good in principle.

   In researching the Lancia Hyena, an unfortunate name at best, I recognized one such idea.
   In the late 1980s, while in the Italian Moto business, we had been approached by an associate who had designed a twin cam cylinder and head for Harley's 750 comp engine, for potential use in the road going 900 Sportsters.
   Having come from someone who had done successful development of Harley and Moto Guzzi Daytona race bikes, the latter of which we were involved with, we thought perhaps it should be looked into. As in look at full development. So in association with Gilardoni, developers of the nikasil cylinder, we began exploring development. One aspect of it was the need for some Harley bottom ends. So I called the geniuses in Milwaukee. Their interest in the project was expressed by their response, we had to buy complete bikes to get the bottom ends. Right. This while we were getting raw castings from Moto Guzzi for race engine development. I think not.

   Looks like this was exactly the deal the Dutch Lancia distributor, Paul Koot was offered.
   Koot had been shown a concept penned by Zagato designer Marco Pedracini while meeting with Elio Zagato at the Milan factory. Koot had a concept of his own, return Zagato to production of cost accessible cars, like the Alfa and Lancia Zagatos of the Sixties. To put this early 1990s meeting in perspective, let's take a look at where Zagato stood.

    The Seventies had not been kind to Zagato. The last Fulvia Zagato ended production in 1972. The last Alfa Junior Zed in '75. There was the Bristol 402 cabriolet and the Lancia Beta Spyder, but their staid rounded rectilinear designs were not setting the auto shows, or showrooms, on fire, or Zagato's new project order books.
   Then began a series of requests that saw the Carrozzeria of the lightweight performance car, transformed to the house of the high performance armoured and bullet proof car. The Brigate Rosse had transforming la strade pubbliche d'Italia into competition driving arenas of a different sort. Oh there was the forward looking electric car project, but battery tech of the time insured these stayed golf carts and industrial site transport.
   The Eighties brought some spark with the Alfa AZ6 on the Zagato stand at the 1983 Geneva show. A boy racer fendered coupe on the superb GTV6 chassis. The rounded complex curve design though fell rather flat with its counterpoint rectangular grille. It never stepped forward from show stand to asphalt.
   Soon after the AZ De Tommy came calling, ordering the Biturbo Spyder. This was followed up by the Aston Vantage Zagato coupes, a rather over-wrought affair. All 50 though were sold out before the series was completed. The decidedly cleaner and to the point Aston Vantage Spyder followed.          
   Then there was the Zagato Nissan/ Autech collaboration, which is best forgotten. I know I have. Though I will say I did see the two prototypes based on the 300ZX when at the factory. To say they were an improvement on the original is not hard.

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