Cars

Fans of Giugiaro’s Lotus Esprit like to imagine that all design roads from the sixties and the seventies lead to their beloved. But whether or not the evolution of car design would inevitably get the Esprit’s wedge-like sleekness or not, you can see many of its antecedents in cars from the late sixties/early seventies.

Porsche’s Tapiro concept from 1970, for example, which was Giugiaro’s fourth full concept car for Ital Design, featured gull wing doors up front with matching gull wings over the engine and load-carrying area.

It featured a longitudinally mounted air-cooled 2.4 liter flat 6 and a 4 speed gearbox and though it was apparently never properly intended for production, it featured all those great Giugiaro styling flourishes from the era: geometric air-ducting a cheese wedge profile and a futuristic cabin surrounded by an acreage of glass.

The car was of course perfect for showing off the kinky boots that were the era’s booth babe leitmotif, too. Let alone the leopard print. Tapiro is the Italian for the pig-like, jungle browsing creature the Tapir, after all. Go figure.