1662 cars and 36 years later, what the general public remembers about Isuzu’s first UK offering would disgrace a flaming skip.
Rumours prevail of its origins as an orphaned Mk2 Scirocco; that it was nothing more than a reshelled Vauxhall Chevette (local variants are available); Chevette and Manta owners can use them as ‘plug and play’ limited slip differential donors; and Lotus fitted the engine from its front-wheel drive Elan as part of its ‘Handling By Lotus’ upgrade programme.
Isuzu commissioned Giorgetto Giugiaro’s Italdesign to produce it a concept car – the Asso di Fiori (Ace of Clubs) – for the 1979 Geneva motor show. It was the last of three Italdesign ‘Ace’ cars: the Audi 80-based Asso di Picche (Ace of Spades) of 1973, followed by the BMW Asso di Quadri (Ace of Diamonds) three years later, which used a 320 (E21) as its basis. The two former cars, produced in collaboration with coachbuilder, Karmann, did not make production; they were dangled in front of their potential suitors in the hope that a brand-new model would emerge.
Italdesign, pressed for time, brought three new models to fruition for Volkswagen, keen to escape the shadow of the Beetle: the Passat, Scirocco and Golf, released between 1973 and 1974.
Though the Asso di Picche and Asso di Quadri went nowhere, some orphaned studies were rescued by other firms. While the reworked, defunct DeLorean DMC-24 produced the dead-end-soon-after Lamborghini Marco Polo, the 1993 Fiat Lucciola made it into showrooms – as the Daewoo Matiz.
Isuzu, meanwhile, wanted a successor to its long-running ‘PA’ series 117 coupé – and as Giugiaro had designed the-117-in-basically-everything-but-name 1966 Sports for the firm, while still at Ghia, there was no doubt whatsoever as to which design house would get the job. So dazzled was Isuzu that it produced a special 117 ‘Giugiaro Edition’ in 1979; its interior fabric was identical to that of the Lancia Megagamma, a design of which Giorgetto was particularly fond.
Word-of-mouth insists, however, that to fulfil Isuzu’s commission in time before the Geneva and Tokyo motor shows, a frazzled Giugiaro dusted off his unsuccessful Mk2 Scirocco proposal from 1977, tweaked its parameters, then sold the rights to the Japanese. That cast-off car still exists in the AutoMuseum Volkswagen in Wolfsburg; like the eventual Mk2 Scirocco, designed in-house by Herbert Schäfer, the Italdesign car sits on a front-wheel drive Mk1 Golf platform.
Too much of the later Asso di Fiori (AdF) differs in detail. Not only in its nose, tail and flush glass area (with its soon-to-be-copied concealed A-pillars and rain guttering), but also by what it was based upon: a rear-wheel drive Isuzu. Such radical alteration of hard points would have made badge engineering fiendishly complicated, especially when, following a rapturous from Isuzu’s management, the AdF was productionised – rapidly.
Audi, BMW and Volkswagen respectively rejected the Asso di Picche, Asso di Quadri and Mk2 Scirocco. The converse happened with Isuzu: it approached Italdesign, more than willingly, to create a new car from scratch. All of Italdesign’s cars from its so-called ‘fifth Copernican revolution’ bear resemblance to one other – but time has mangled the facts. A representative from GFG Style, Giugiaro’s incumbent automotive design consultancy, insisted that AdF and Scirocco (Mk1 and Mk2) were unrelated.
British motoring titles, however, – Motor, Autocar and CAR – amplified the myth. ‘The “Ace of Clubs”, as it was called, clearly had production potential and some even ventured to suggest that it would become the new Volkswagen Scirocco.’ It didn’t (Motor, November 16 1985).
Of the Piazza Turbo, tested on February 5, 1986, Autocar wrote: ‘It was even hinted at the time that it was a rejected design for a “MkII” Volkswagen Scirocco.’ Five years earlier, the late Giancarlo Perini reported in Car Styling Quarterly 35 that Italdesign submitted two Mk2 Scirocco proposals (Schäfer’s internal teams presented three to VW management); this second car, if it exists, has not resurfaced.
CAR also jumped on the bandwagon, suggesting, in February 1986, that Italdesign itself was responsible for the rebrand: ‘The Piazza is pretty... with a distinctly European flavour (as a Giugiaro show car, it was once touted as a possible shape for a Volkswagen Scirocco replacement).’ Statements like these quickly took root in the consciousness of readers. Magazines had far more authority in the eighties; before access to scanners and the internet, ‘My mate heard’ and ‘I’ve read’ ruled supreme.
These and other Piazza urban legends were international, and long lived: in 2018, US journalist, Jason Cammisa, a devoted Mk2 Scirocco fan, famed for his rigorous and entertaining features with Hagerty and ISSIMI Original, repeated them on Instagram.
So few Piazzas were sold in the UK that warped tales of its origin, mechanics (and compatability with other General Motors cars) quickly spread. Although Isuzu pressed the Asso di Fiori into domestic production (as the JR-Series Piazza) in a record-breaking 24 months, the UK didn’t get Piazza Turbos until 1985.
Of the 113,419 Piazzas built between May 1981 and February 1990, we received just 1662, split between ‘pre Lotus’ (1985-1986) and ‘Handling By Lotus’ (1988 model year onwards) cars, all of which were turbocharged, and given the internal Isuzu code of ‘JR120’. Naturally aspirated Piazzas, called ‘JR130’, available from 1981 in Japan, never came to the UK.
We digress. Isuzu, Japan’s oldest car maker, which began producing local variants of the Wolseley A-9 (and which later signed an agreement with Rootes to produce Hillmans under licence), signed a capital agreement with GM in 1971, giving the latter a 34 percent stake of Isuzu, which also helped co-develop the ‘T-Car’ platform.
This small world car served, with local styling and engine/axle variations, as the Opel Kadett, Chevrolet and Vauxhall Chevette (separate variants), Daewoo Maepsy, Saehan Bird, and numerous South American models. Isuzu’s T-Car was the Gemini: codenamed ‘PF’, it was also rebadged as a Holden for Australia and ‘Buick’s Opel by Isuzu’ back in the USA. To call the Piazza Turbo a rebodied Chevette is massively wide of the mark. The AdF concept was a coachbuilt PF Gemini 1800, a truth which then fostered a lie.
For decades, the UK-based Isuzu Piazza Turbo Owners’ Club (IPTOC) has been at pains to point out that the Piazza is wider and longer than the Chevette; it also used a different floorpan. Of all the T-Car variants, it is the Gemini, not either Chevette, that the Piazza has the most in common. Even then, only the front suspension upper ball-joints interchange. UK Piazza Turbos were the top of the Piazza pecking order – the Turbo model arrived in Japan in 1984, though UK homologation requirements saw peak power outputs dip slightly. What was shared between both markets – as well as that 2.0-litre, Isuzu Fargo derived, single-overhead cam four cylinder engine – was a Turbo specific, five-link, live rear axle, complete with a limited slip differential (LSD) similar in design to those fitted to Isuzu’s KB and TFR pick-up trucks.
That ‘slipper’ was fitted to manual Piazza Turbos as part of a UK specification laid out by the-then newly formed Isuzu GB (AKA Jaguar and Porsche agent Charles Follett), which entrusted the late Barrie ‘Whizzo’ Williams to road test the car and sign off on its UK calibration.
The only choices available to customers were those of gearbox, paint and interior trim; air-conditioning, cruise control, power steering and a four-speaker, 40W Panasonic radio cassette (as otherwise fitted to Follett-supplied 924s and 944s) were standard.
By the late nineties, cheap Piazza Turbos could be had for pennies – but their limited-slip differentials (optional on the later Handling By Lotus cars) did not drop straight into Chevettes or Mantas, despite what everyone claimed. Body pick up points had to be cut off and modified; half-shafts had to be shortened. Piazza Turbo final drives were also hilariously short for most Vauxhall and Opel fans, many of whom cut up rusty Piazza Turbos to find out the hard way.
1988-model year Piazzas came with ‘Handling By Lotus’ badging; Lotus, a GM subsidiary since 1986, was given the job of improving the Piazza’s much criticised wet-weather handling. International Motors brought the revised cars in from then on, Isuzu GB having folded in November 1986 before any 1987 model year cars were landed (‘Whizzo’ was paid in spare Piazza parts; Alan Day Limited and B&H Group bought the 535 cars directly from the receiver, selling them off at a discount).
Lotus did a more than credible job updating the Piazza’s suspension and steering (including new Armstrong dampers, Goodyear tyres and reinforced B-pilars) on a tight budget. Its team – which included then contractor, Richard Rackham (now Lotus’s head of vehicle concepts) – left the engine alone. The M100 Elan’s 16-valve 1.6 never went near the Piazza: that car was an entirely separate, massively ambitious project to which Hethel honed and tested like never before.
Pub experts have the Isuzu Piazza Turbo all wrong; now, at least, you know the facts.
This article first appeared in issue 34 of Classic.Retro.Modern. magazine.
