Many will play, few will win, and even fewer will attempt to resurrect a semi-obscure classic sports car brand. That last achievement was the goal of Raffi Minasian and Bill Miller back in 1979, and this was the result- the Pegaso Dual Turbo. Pegaso, as you will recall, was the truck and bus maker, founded at the factory which originally produced Hispano-Suizas, and part of the Spain-based company Enasa. The company eventually fell on hard times, ending up being purchased by IVECO in 1990, and fading out for good in ’94.
Long before that, however, they built some insanely cool sports cars, cars with small DOHC V8s, five-speed gearboxes and De Dion suspension. From 1953 to ’58, about 85 of the Z-102 sports cars were built in various coupe and drop-top bodystyles, however cost and engineering hurdles (they were bears to drive) were never overcome, and the bus maker went back to making busses.
And that was it for the Pegaso name and sports cars until 1979.
That was when Minasian and Miller decided that 85 cars were no-where near enough, and chose to build a new Pegaso sports car, a modern iteration of the classic’s raison d’etat, resulting in this mid-engine Chevy-powered beauty. Nothing much came of their effort, but the car still exists, and was featured at the Peterson Automotive Museum last year along with another ’70s icon of automotive hubris – the Dale.
They say a picture speaks a thousand words, so instead of going on about the new Pegaso build, here’s Minasian’s video of it:
[youtube width=”640″ height=”510″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EF8ARtu5VqI[/youtube]
Mystery Car Revealed – Now With More Video!
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I consider myself shamed for not being able to immediately recognize the 1970s revival of my favorite 1950s sports car producer. Woe is me! Woe!
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For a one off sports car, this one is quite nice. Enough compound curves and corners to keep a body guy in work for years if it was involved in an accident though! And I love the badging located behind the doors on this one.
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I'm not crazy about the bodywork, but it looks well thought-out and the interior is about as good as you can find ca. 1980. In the video it looks like the burl dash is a veneer over solid pressboard! Even the wheels are tasteful.
<img src="http://blog-cca-id.com/images/stories/2010/03/pegasointerior.jpg"> -
Pegaso was sort of like the Tesla or Fisker of their day. This continuation car isn't ambitious enough by half. The proper way to do it is to get corrupt politicians on board to pay for it and plan a bespoke engine based on emerging technologies. Then, once you've milked the initial curriousity generated by such a grandiose concept, you release a second bespoke drivetrain using proven technologies…that also is a useless, unreliable boat anchor. On paper, the Z102 was a Porsche 928 built 20 years before the 928 showed up on Porsche's drawing boards. On the street or the racetrack, it was…practically nothing. Not only did it not work, both the factory and coach built bodies were almost uniformly clumsy and ghastly. To my eye, this car has the styling right, but there is no way that Pegaso would have ever used a Chevy(or any other functional) engine, had the venture survived.
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Thank God it wasn't the Bricklin that first went through my mind!
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