Last Summer , when Claudio Zampolli was compagning and engineering portfolio for his new supercar around the offices of the car magazines, R&T welcomed him with smiles and encouragement. We thumbed trough the elaborate dossier on the car that would become the Cizeta Moroder V16T, cooing at the lovely white shape of Marcello Gandini`s design, admiring the italians once again for what they are able to achieve with their dreams.
- "where are you going to get an engine for it?" we asked.
- "I designed the engine myself," he answered, "I`m going to build it." And he showed us convincing schematics for a 6.0-liter, normally aspirated 4-valve-per-cylinder engine, driving the rear wheels, that was to be mounted tranversely mid-way back in the car like a mechanical egg in a stunning white nest.

In our scrutinizing of Zampolli`s engine plans we casually began counting combustion chambers: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. We clared our throats and began counting again: one, two, three... fourteen, fiftenn, sixteen?
- Sixteen cylinders. Four bankss of four laid out in a 90-degree vee with two overhead camshafts in each bank, all driven by a single duplex chain at the center of the engine block. Let`s see now, at four valves per, that`s 64 valves operated bi eight camshafts... er, Mr Zampolli, you`re going to produce a 64-valve, octa-cam V-16 powerplant of your own design? Claudio, an italian from Modena, just smiled that smile, "Yes".

Admittedly, having a good share of gritty motor oil from the region that produces Lamborghinis, Ferraris and Maseratis under your fingernails is an exellent introduction to a man`s qualifications for building exotic italian sports cars. And Claudio Zampolli has a full roster of credentials. Now in his early fifties, Zampolli was a engineer at Lamborgini from 1966 to 1973 under Paolo Stanzani. Zampolli`s 8-year tenure was precious period at Sant`Agata and he found himself assisting in the development of such venerated pieces as the Miura, Espada, Jarama and Countach.
- In 1973, Zampolli came to the U.S. to aid Lamborghini in establishing a dealership network and endet up opening his own Italian sports car sales and service outlet in Southern California ( making him no stranger to poly-cylindred engines, we might add ). That was in 1975, and that`s when Claudio began having The Dream. He became consumed with the idea of building his own car. It wasn`t about money, he had plenty of money. maybe it was the delayed reaction of something in the water around Modena that makes men see pistons ( lots of pistons ). More likely it was Zampolli`s growing awareness that the mercurial market for automobile exotica on the streets of Beverly Hills, Bel Air, santa Monica and Newport Beach was getting ready to get bored with commonplace sports cars with those pedestrian V-12 engines, thus making his 16-cylinder dream, his gift to car enthusiasts, a viable, producible reality.

Unfortunately, such dreams, are far from cheap, and while the market-timing for Claudio`s car is white-hot in 1989-with well-heeled heel-and-toe buyers having their pumps primed by the Ferrari F40 and the Jaguar XJ-220-such was not always the case. The development years of the Cizeta Moroder V16T drained Zampolli`s bank account. Still he persevered, committing four of his personally owned dream cars-a Lamborghini Miura SV, Ferrari 250 GTO, Ferrari Daytona and Ferrari 275 Coupe-to the auction block to get cash for the project. Finally, after years of planning, he was ready to trasform the car from a fantasy on paper to a streetable reality. That`s when he visited our offices, introduced himself and showed us his portfolio.

- We admired Zampolli`s commitment of time and money, his impressive qualifications, and his determination. At the same time, however, we were forced to temper our enthusiasm with the knowlidge that individuals with supercar dreams are a dime per dozen cylinders ( much less sixteen ), and that history and economics were not on his side. It was the summer of 1988, when John Z. De Lorea`s blues were still being hashed out by judicial systems on both sides of the Atlantic and Francis Ford Coppola`s fairytale-tragedy "Tucker: The man and his dream" was about to be released like a documentary on discouragement for automotive entrepreneurs. West German Walter Treser`s ill-fated exotic car business ( see "Treser Audi Quattro Roadster," in Road & Track`s Exotic Cars: 3, and "Treser T1" in Exotic Cars:8 ), was just beginning to take its last gasps towards bankruptcy. And Jerry Wiegert`s perennial watched-pot-the Vector W2 was last seen in las Vegas with Elvis behind the wheel. Or was that Elton in an Invicta?

- Zampolli told us that the first finished engine was being prepared for dynamometer testing and that he would then drop in into the pre-production prototype that we saw in the portfolio pictures. That was the end of his visit. There was nothing we could tell him that he didn`t already know firsthand: He didn`t need to hear the odds against success from us. And as he left us, we wondered if this fine, well-meaning man could come up with the right combination of vision and good luck needet to perform a near miracle. We wished him well, said goodbye and, as supercar devotees, secretly prayed that somehow he would pull it off.
- And so it was in Dezember of last year ( 1989 ) that we allowed ourselves a stifled cheer of victory when the Cizeta Moroder V16T made its debut-car as engine-at the Los Angeles auto show. The naming of the car is a situation by which there hangs an interesting tale:"Cizeta"-chee-zay-tah-is the initials. "Moroder" comes from Oscar-winning composer " Take my Breath away " Giorgio Moroder, who, as of three years ago, became a 50-percent financial backer in the car.

- There has been a rumor that the Cizeta Moroder V16T`s powerful styling was originally supposed to belong to the successor to the Countach, the Diablo. the similarities between the two cars are, indeed, notable. The final statement about proper appellation, however, is made just below the Cizeta Moroder`s knife-edge lip spoiler at the rear: Cizeta V16T.
- Dimensionally, the V16T is a few inches longer than its spiritual cousin at lamborghini (176.9 in. versus 173.3 in.) but the Cizeta`s wheelbase is almost 7 1/2 in. longer. And since somebody decided to install a V-16 engine sideways, the car is a wide piece of work as well, yet it is only 0.2 in. taller than the Countach. Taken in Gestalt form, the Cizeta Moroder V16T is impressively long, low and wiiiiide.

- A quick slip inside the V16T`s cockpit reveals a very large workspace with exellent outward vision. most of the interior is draped in luxurious leather, accented by the 3-spoke Momo steering wheel and matching shift knob. The dash is simple enough: a huge speedo and tach (black needles on white backgrounds) and warning lights.
- The last time i remember seeing a V-16 go into a production car, it was a longitudinally mounted 185-bhp Series 90 Cadillac from 1940. Detroid build 61 of the 7.4-liter V-16s and sold them for about $3000 apiece. Claudio Zampolli figures he can deliver between 50 and 100 cizeta Moroder V16Ts a year from his 30-man operation in Modena. the price will be more like $300.000, but Zampolli reports that he already has more than 100 money-up-front orders for his dream coming true. He expects to begin filling those orders at the end of next year.
- Talking to Claudio Zampolli you get the impression that the hardest part of the Cizeta Moroder V16T project was the 14 anonymous, uphill years of blood, sweat and tears when nobody knew and it seemed like nobody cared. After that, delivering a 200-plus mph supercar must seem like a piece of cake, a walk in the park, a Sunday drive, a cruise down the strip.