Italdesign Formula 4

The Italdesign Formula 4 is a niche car for a youthful audience that Italdesign showed at the 1996 Geneva Motor Show as the Formula project. It is a four-seat car on a Fiat Bravo floorpan with a 2000 cc, 5-cylinder, 147 horsepower engine. Its idea was to cut production cost: the fully equipped floorpan, mechanicals and upholstery are covered by a fit-over body shell fitted over the sills and fastened and removed with the help of an electric pulse, and the doors have disappeared, the car resting on a running board with a pioneering flavour. The four bucket seats are protected by individual roll bars, and unused seats can be covered. By changing only the upper shell, made with plastic forming processes that need different moulds and little investment, the Formula 4 could become a roadster, a leisure car, a pick-up or a van. The Russian magazine Motor reported it at Geneva as a four-seat plastic-bodied roadster without doors that could be reconfigured as a three-, two- or one-seater.