The Zagato Zele was a small electric car built by the famed Italian
design house Zagato of Milan who were better known for designing some of
the most exotic and beautiful cars available for marques such as Aston
Martin, Lancia and Alfa Romeo. The Zele was conceived at the time of the
fuel crisisin the mid 1970’s and was produced between 1974 and 1976.
Total production run was somewhere in the low hundreds; it was a rare
carin period and is even more so today. Three variants were produced,the
1000, 1500 and 2000, each referring to increased power output.With a
glass fibre bodywork over a steel framed chassis, it was derived from
the Fiat 500 and Fiat 124 and powered by four 12voltbatteries. The
batteries were easily charged simply by plugging them directly into the
mains supply, via a transformer.Presented today, is a 1974 Zele 1000
that arrived into the UK from Italy earlier this year. It had always
resided in the Pisa area of Italy and was previously in the ownership of
Urbanina SPA, a company based at Santa Croce Sull’arno. Urbanina SPA
was responsible for very early development of electric vehicles in Italy
and the rights to their early developments were purchased by Zagato,
this then led to the development of the Zagato Zele.

Recently sold for £12,000 by
Historics At Brooklands Fall Auction

historics.proxibid.com/asp/catalog.asp?aid=106600