I Never Realized This Stillborn Jaguar Existed Because Of A Newspaper And Became The Lamborghini Espada

The world of cars never stops giving. There’s always something new to learn, some forgotten bit of arcane knowledge that you never encountered before, and you can never know everything, no matter how much car stuff seems to be rattling around in your head. I encountered that just recently, when I happened to see something about a Bertone concept car that looked weirdly familiar. It was firing all those car-identification neurons, but it had the wrong animal on its grille: a jaguar instead of a bull.

The car had a jaguar on the grille, but it was named for a fish: a piranha. Well, it’s actually a little more confusing, because the name is technically Pirana, no ‘h,’ but the badges on the car are spelled like the fish, with the ‘h.’ It’s weird.

Also weird is how this car came to be. It’s a Bertone concept built on a Jaguar E-type chassis, but it wasn’t commissioned by either Jaguar or Bertone. It was commissioned by the motoring staff at The Telegraph, the British newspaper! What? Man, the days when there was real money in journalism had to be pretty fantastic.

The editor of the paper, John Antsey, dared the staff to create

“The car he would create for his own pleasure if funds were unlimited.”

Holy crap, what a dream! The paper was able to get an E-Type chassis from Jaguar, and it was a relatively easy process to get Bertone on board, where chief stylist Marcello Gandini took on the project. The work started in May 1967, with the goal of having it ready to display at the Earl’s Court Motor Show, only five months later!

Incredibly, they did it, and the car they built was a staggering triumph of bold design and the best tech and appointments that the British motor industry could muster: an in-roof air-conditioning system from Smiths, Connolly leather seats, a then-wow-inducing tape deck, seat belts, the works.

It was the hit of the Earl’s Court Show, and I imagine it brought The Telegraph plenty of whatever the analog version of clicks were back in the day. But Jaguar wasn’t interested in pursuing it as a car, and it was eventually sold to a private buyer.

But! Bertone wasn’t done yet. When they were working for Lamborghini on the car that would become the Espada, the wooden bucks used to build the Pirana were used to build early Espada prototypes – that’s how close these cars are.

I mean, just look:

The Espada was a four-seater from the get-go (the Pirana was converted to a four-seater later in its life, then reverted back when restored) so you can see related changes like the larger rear side windows. Overall, though, the proportions and basic design of the Pirana definitely lived on in the Espada.

Even some design details like the design of the badging seemed to survive from Pirana (or Piranha, since that ‘h’ was still part of then name when the badges were made) to the Espada as you can see:

Sure, the Piranha is suggesting a sleek fish and the Espada is suggesting a sword, but the angled, directional lettering carries through in both. The Pirana’s pirhana badges also do the directional thing that I always geek out about every time I see an Espada:

 

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I don’t know how I missed the story of the Pirana before; I’m glad I know it now, though. The car sold a few years back via RM Sotheby’s for an impressive $324,000, and even that staggering price seems fair for a car as beautiful and interesting as this one. Also, I can’t get over how this is a record of what may have been the Golden Age of auto journalism – when your publication could commission a custom-built concept car from flapjacking Bertone, for fudge’s sake.

Damn.