This is one of the three Stratos Zero stunt car replicas that were made for the Michael Jackson film Moonwalker in 1988. After its appearance on screen, it was converted into a street-legal car, and it’s now being offered for sale.
The original Bertone Stratos Zero is one of the most famous wedge cars of all time and undeniably one of the most memorable concept cars of the 20th century. But it’s currently part of a prestigious private collection, so if you want to get one, this might be your best chance.
Fast Facts: A Stratos Zero From “Moonwalker”
- The Bertone Stratos Zero debuted in 1970 as a radical wedge-shaped concept car designed by Marcello Gandini. Based on Lancia Fulvia mechanical underpinnings, it had a mid-mounted 1.6 liter V4, rear-wheel drive, and a windshield that opened to allow entry. It eventually inspired the legendary Lancia Stratos HF rally car.
- The original Stratos Zero became one of the most recognizable concept cars of its era, standing just 33 inches tall. It helped establish a relationship between Bertone and Lancia, ultimately leading to the Stratos HF, which won three consecutive World Rally Championship manufacturers’ titles between 1974 and 1976.
- For Michael Jackson’s 1988 film “Moonwalker,” three fiberglass Stratos Zero replica shells were reportedly produced for a transformation sequence in the “Smooth Criminal” segment. British custom-car builder Andy Saunders bought one of these empty props in 2003 and began converting it into a fully functioning, road-legal car.
- Saunders used a Fiat X1/9 chassis, engine, suspension, and 5-speed manual transmission to underpin the replica, completing the conversion in 2006. Finished in Lamborghini Mica Orange, it was sold to the United States in 2008 and titled in Michigan. It is now being auctioned with documentation, service records, and a Michigan title.
History Speedrun: The Lancia Stratos Zero
Coachbuilder Bertone built the Stratos Zero in the hopes of winning work from Italian automaker Lancia, a company his firm had no working relationship with. It was a major gamble. The mechanical basis of the car was a crash-damaged Lancia Fulvia 1.6 HF. They kept its engine, gearbox and subframe (suspension included), and automotive stylist Marcello Gandini, the firm’s chief designer, penned a stunning new body around it all.
Coachbuilder Bertone built the Stratos Zero in the hopes of winning work from Italian automaker Lancia, a company his firm had no working relationship with. It was a major gamble. Image provided by Bertone.
Now, the Fulvia was a front-wheel-drive car, so for the Zero, Bertone moved the engine and gearbox from the nose to a position behind the cockpit and ahead of the rear axle to drive the back wheels, and then modified the suspension and steering to suit a wedge-shaped body that tapered to a point at both ends.
The engine was the narrow-angle 1.6 liter (1,584cc) twin-cam V4 from the Fulvia 1.6 HF, with an 82 mm bore and a 75 mm stroke, Lancia rated it at about 113 bhp in standard trim. It sat under a vented, side-hinged cover built up from triangular panels. Disc brakes were fitted at all four wheels, this was a space-age-looking machine and drums would have just seemed a little silly.
Getting into the cockpit meant lifting the top-hinged windshield, stepping across a rubber mat on the nose and dropping into the seat while the steering wheel was tilted away – the instruments sat on a panel to the driver’s left. At 33 inches high, the Zero was lower even than Pininfarina’s Ferrari Modulo, a rival wedge shown the same year and penned by Paolo Martin.
The oft-told story is that Nuccio Bertone personally drove the Stratos Zero to Lancia and passed right under the closed entrance boom gate. Lancia’s rally chief, Cesare Fiorio, and his father Sandro, the company’s public relations director, loved the car and pushed for a Bertone-bodied competition/rally car, and the Stratos HF prototype appeared at the 1971 Turin Auto Show.
Apart from its name, its mid-mounted engine and its designer, the Stratos HF had little in common with the Zero concept car. With a highly-modified Ferrari Dino V6 behind the driver, it won the World Rally Championship manufacturers’ title for Lancia in 1974, 1975, and 1976.
Bertone kept the Stratos Zero in its own collection, it was painted silver for a time before Bertone restored it in its original copper-bronze in 2000. When the company’s museum was liquidated, RM Auctions offered the car at Villa Erba during the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este weekend on May the 21st, 2011.
Its new owner, Phillip Sarofim, sent it to England at the end of 2022 to be recommissioned for an appearance on the frozen lake at St. Moritz and it would later appear on the hallowed lawns of Pebble Beach.
Above Video: The full Moonwalker film is available available to watch on YouTube above, skip to 48:03 if you want to see the sequence with the Stratos Zero replica, which might be the car in this article.
In the “Smooth Criminal” part of the film, Jackson’s character is cornered in an alley and turns into a Stratos Zero to escape the gangsters chasing him. As you do. According to Andy Saunders, who later bought one of the props, Jackson had a film prop company make three body shells for the transformation.
The Moonwalker Stratos Zero For Michael Jackson
Moonwalker was released in 1988, and for the uninitiated (like me), it was a 1988 musical anthology film starring Michael Jackson and named after his signature dance move, the Moonwalk.
Instead of one continuous storyline, Moonwalker strings together a few segments, there’s concert footage of “Man in the Mirror” from the Bad World Tour, a short biographical section about his career from the Jackson 5 onward, a child-cast parody of the “Bad” video called “Badder,” a claymation sequence for “Speed Demon,” and some other music-video pieces.
In the “Smooth Criminal” part of the film, Jackson’s character is cornered in an alley and turns into a Stratos Zero to escape the gangsters chasing him. As you do. According to Andy Saunders, who later bought one of the props, Jackson had a film prop company make three body shells for the transformation. The one Saunders bought was an empty fiberglass tub with no separate doors, windows or openings, finished in silver.
Building The Moonwalker Car Into A Real Vehicle
Saunders is a custom-car builder in Poole, Dorset, and low-slung cars are his specialty. One he built in 1987 to claim the title of world’s lowest car stood at just 34.5 inches. In 2003, while looking for another project, he found what looked like a Stratos Zero at a price that was too good to be true for the real thing – it was one of the Moonwalker empty shells. He bought the prop and shipped it over from the United States to England.
He chose the donor car to use for the bodyshell by measuring the wheelbase – the Fiat X1/9’s came within 0.7 inch (18 mm) of the Zero’s. The similarity between the two cars should perhaps not be a surprise, given that the X1/9 was also designed by Gandini, and later built by Bertone.
Saunders took a rust-free X1/9 and kept its entire floor pan, engine, gearbox, and suspension in place. He cut away the rest of the Fiat’s body, strengthened the floor, mounted the shell and adjusted it until it sat at the same height as the Bertone car. Then he made everything the prop had never had – opening panels, windows, grilles, and even working lights.
The X1/9 has MacPherson struts at all four corners, disc brakes front and rear, and rack-and-pinion steering. The 1500 version, introduced in 1979 (and underpinning this car), introduced a more powerful 1.5 liter (1,498 cc) single-overhead-cam four and a 5-speed gearbox.
Saunders finished the car in 2006 in Lamborghini Mica Orange. It has Bertone badges, Schmidt multi-piece alloy wheels with Bertone center caps, a Mountney steering wheel on the right, and Saunders’ signature on the tail panel.
Saunders took a rust-free X1/9 and kept its entire floor pan, engine, gearbox, and suspension in place. He cut away the rest of the Fiat’s body, strengthened the floor, mounted the shell and adjusted it until it sat at the same height as the Bertone car. Then he made everything the prop had never had – opening panels, windows, grilles, and even working lights.
The car was sold in 2008 and shipped to the United States where it was registered for the road. A plate in the nose shows the chassis number of a 1970 Lancia Flavia 2000 Coupé, and its Michigan title describes it as a 1970 Lancia.
It’s now popped up for sale for the first time in recent memory, it’s still based in Michigan, and it’s being offered with a Moonwalker Blu-ray, service invoices from current ownership, importation paperwork, magazine articles, and a clean Michigan title. If you’d like to read more or place a bid you can visit the listing here.
Images courtesy of Bring a Trailer + Bertone
Articles that Ben Branch has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
