Tuesday, Scagliarini Motorsports (based in Colorado, because nothing says “Italia” like Boulder stoners and Durango ranch hands) offered up a concept drawing of a modified Fiat 500 Abarth mini-panel-van called the 504 Coupè Zagato Elaborata. Though Scagliarini claims the car draws influence from the Fiat 8v Elaborata by Zagato, the august adder-of-double-bubbles-to-all-things actually had nothing at all to do with Scagliarini’s drawing and wants that fact known. Zagato Communication Manager Alvise-Marco Seno fired off the following missive, suggesting legal action is underway:
Dear journalist/staff,
As concerns the “Abarth – Scagliarini – Zagato”, please find attached an official statement about our company.
Zagato neither had any official relationship with Scagliarini, nor was officially contacted by any member regarding this project.
This news (which is published everywhere) created a great embarrassment to us. So It will be extremely appreciated if you could give it maximum visibility.
“Zagato Intend to declare that there isn’t any involvement at all regarding the ‘Scagliarini 504 Coupé Zagato Elaborata’. The Milanese Atelier has been never approached by Scagliarini and neither contacts nor commercial initiatives took place at all. Due to the above reasons Zagato neither released any approval regarding this project and the Intellectual Property of the Fiat 500 Zagato, nor the use of the Zagato name and logo. In addition, no production tooling have been ever used to design the above Scagliarini. Zagato is taking all the needed legal actions for the purpose”.
We at Car and Driver are naturally nothing but kindly attentive, and—above all—kind. We’re not so sure about Scagliarini, though. The “About Us” on the company’s web page feels a little fast and loose with the context; only a careful reading makes it clear that Scagliarini has no affiliation with Fiat or Abarth.
In a statement released today via its Facebook page, Scagliarini counters—in part—“The hysteria that has been created by our elaboration of the FIAT 500 Coupe Zagato is not the type of exposure Scagliarini Motorsports seeks. As a show of our respect to a great man and the co-Founder of Abarth, effective immediately Scagliarini Motorsports has renamed its elaboration of the FIAT 500 Coupe Zagato to simply 504 Coupè Zagato Elaborata.”
We ask, how is that better? Nobody speaks Italian! Everybody here thinks “GTO” stands for “John Z. De Lorean” and wonders if Ferrari licensed it for the 599 along with the MagneRide shocks. Oh, Scagliarini, we’d like you better if you just stopped being all weird and shifty.
