Giugiaro Quaranta Concept Plays Taxi in Rome

by Noah Joseph (RSS feed)
May 11th 2010 at 5:02AM

Concept cars tend to have a short shelf-life. Typically they're unveiled at the auto show they're designed and built for, then might tour the circuit of other local expos and finally retire to a museum, if they're lucky. But the ItalDesign-Giugiaro Quaranta concept was pulled out of the archives to pull real-world duty recently in Rome.

The show car, created to mark the design house's 40th anniversary, made its debut at the 2008 Geneva Motor Show. Billed as the world's fastest hybrid, the Quaranta is powered by the hybrid powertrain from the Lexus RX400h and supplemental solar panels to propel itself to sixty in 4.2 seconds. And recently it was retrofitted with a meter, white paint and a dome light to shuttle fares around the Italian capital at the same rate as any other taxi in the city. We'll be suitably envious every time we take a plain old yellow cab around town from here on in.

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