A new class was announced for the 2024 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, officially titled “Wedge-Shaped Concept Cars & Prototypes,” it was to be a celebration of one of motordom’s most popular concept vehicle genres – wedge cars.
There remains much debate surrounding the origin of wedge cars, most credit the earliest designs to the likes of Marcello Gandini and Giorgetto Giugiaro – two of the greatest names in the history of automotive design.
But a new name popped up more recently, a little-remembered designer from Florida named Ray Cannara, who designed and built his own wedge car in 1966 – two years before Gandini and Giugiaro began releasing their own wedge concepts.
The 1966 Cannara has been embraced broadly by the automotive community after its discovery by Geoff Hacker 10 years ago and its subsequent restoration.
It was invited to take part at the Pebble Beach Concours 2024 alongside many of the greatest wedge cars ever made, including the Lancia Stratos Zero, the Ferrari Modulo 512, Aston Martin Bulldog, the Honda HP-X Pininfarina Concept, the Ford Probe I Ghia Concept, the Ferrari Rainbow Bertone Coupe, and a number of others.
We were at Pebble Beach this year, embedded with the team from Undiscovered Classics, and the following are our 10 favorites from the wedge class at the event. It’s important to note that some of these vehicles aren’t officially classified as wedge cars, like the Ghia Streamline X Gilda and the Plymouth XNR Ghia Roadster, but they do feature wedge-design elements, hence their inclusion.
1966 Cannara Roadster – This is a revolutionary car designed and built by Ray Cannara back in 1966. He drove it across the United States from Florida to California to attend the prestigious ArtCenter College of Design with his luggage strapped to the back and his mother in the passenger seat. That’s a distance of 2,547 miles!
The 1970 Mercedes-Benz C 111/II – This is a Mercedes-Benz C 111 concept car from the series of 16 that were produced in total to showcase potential future Mercedes technologies including Wankel rotary engines, turbocharged engines, diesel automotive engines, multi-link rear suspension, modern gull-wing doors, and more.
The 1979 Aston Martin Bulldog – This car was undeniably one of the highlights of the event, and I say that recognizing that all the cars are highlights in their own way. A small production run of Bulldogs had been planned in the late 1970s but was eventually scrapped. Just one was built in the end, it’s capable of 205.4 mph (330.55 km/h) thanks to its 600 bhp turbocharged 5.3 liter V8.
The 1969 Lancia Fulvia HF1.6 Competizione – This remarkable looking car is a one-off said to have been conceived by the legendary Alejandro De Tomaso. It’s based on a standard Fulvia chassis but has an all-new body that was considered state-of-the-art in the late 1960s when it made its debut.
The 1970 Lancia Stratos HF Zero – This is undeniably one of the most famous wedge concept cars in history, and it was one of the hardest to photograph on the day due to the crowds around it. It was designed by Marcello Gandini (then at Bertone), and it formed the stylistic foundation of the Lancia Stratos road and rally car that would debut three years later, and win the World Rally Championship in 1974, 1975 and 1976.
The 1972 BMW Turbo Concept – Though you wouldn’t know it at first glance, this concept car is based on the BMW 2002 platform. It was built to celebrate the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich with futuristic styling, gullwing doors, and a turbocharged 2002 engine capable of 276 bhp.
The 1976 Ferrari 308 GT Rainbow – This is another Bertone concept, based on a shortened Ferrari 308 GT4 chassis with an all new body. It featured razor-sharp Gandini styling with a removable roof panel that stored neatly behind the seats. It bares more than a passing resemblance to the earlier Gandini-designed Fiat X1/9, and perhaps even his 1969 Autobianchi A112 Runabout concept.
The 1973 Chevrolet Aerovette – This is one of those historic concept cars that seemingly everyone wishes had made it into production. The Aerovette was developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as a mid-engined Corvette but the project was cancelled by John DeLorean who deemed it impractical. That’s the same John DeLorean who would release his own famous silver gullwing sports car just a few years later.
The 1970 Ferrari 512S Modulo – This is one of the most dramatic wedge cars of its age, designed by Paolo Martin of Pininfarina it featured an exceedingly low roofline, a glass canopy roof and sides, and it’s powered by a 5.0 liter Ferrari V12 producing 550 bhp. It’s said to be capable of a 220 mph (354 km/h) top speed, however no one seem to have ever tested it.
The 1955 Ghia Streamline X Gilda Coupe – This car was commissioned by Chrysler executive Virgil Exner and built by Italian coachbuilding firm Ghia to a design penned by aerodynamicist and engineer Giovanni Savonuzzi. The car is powered by a gas-turbine engine that gave it a claimed top speed of 140 mph (225 kph).
The 1993 Vector W8 – This is a car that needs no introduction to any fan of unusual supercars. The Vector W8 was developed by American Gerald Wiegert and his team in California in the late 1980s and then put into production. Just 22 would be built in total, and today they’re considered highly collectible.
Articles that Ben 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.
