Find yourself a little blasé about sub-three-second 0-62 mph (100 km/h) numbers and seven-minute Nürburgring laps? Do you find diamond-encrusted headlamps on multi-million-dollar hypercars not to your taste? Perhaps what you really need to bring on a new wave of supercar enthusiasm is ... an aquarium? That's what one supercar startup is thinking, anyway, combining all-electric power and extreme styling into a unique 2+2 (2 people, 2 fish).
In the ever-more-crowded world of high-performance supercars, we guess you need to be an attention-seeker, but Italy's Frangivento seems extra desperate to get noticed. It's been showing its Asfané supercar design around Italy and other parts of Europe, going so far as to chopper the car to the top of the 8,120-ft (2,475-m) Ra Valles section of Italy's famed Cortina D'Amprezzo ski resort – big mountains, big motors.
Every inch of the Asfané has also been optimized for head turns and triple takes, with an extreme design that proudly honors the wedge-happy concept car era of the 1970s. The Asfané wedge is framed by thick, silver panels that rise from the belt line and wrap the roof on either side. From the peak, the design shoots back into a powerful rear fascia with a large diffuser below tailpipes jutting out amidst the trailing edges of the body work.
The silver pillars house what looks like sharp DRL eyebrows over a dual pop-up headlight design. Outside of the pillars, the Asfané bodywork intermingles with aerodynamic components like large front intakes and side skirt winglets. The windshield, split by a central wiper, appears to have just enough curvature to keep hopes of seeing the road ahead alive. And if our translation of Italian auto media reports like this one from Quattroruote is accurate, that single windshield wiper includes integrated camera equipment to take selfies – perfect for capturing your best "Oh crap, I can't see a thing out of this weird sculpture on steroids" face.
We've reached out to Frangivento for more details, like the size, layout and performance of the Asfané's powertrain options, which include an all-electric set-up. There's some varying information out there, mostly in Italian, so we'd rather wait to confirm these details with the company itself.
In the meantime, it's worth taking a look at the all-new Asfané Charlotte Roadster, which debuted this week at Top Marques Monaco. From the outside, it's a bit subtler than the bright-red heli-skiing coupe above. The Charlotte's gentle white paint nearly blends seamlessly with the silver arches. Between those arches, the roof cutout makes it a proper roadster.
The real story, though, is inside. In place of the lifeless panel you'd expect to see backing the two seats, there's something very different: a bright blue aquarium complete with colorful fish, including a duo named Nemo and Dory. It even appears as though Frangivento might have taken care to pick out fish the same species as their Hollywood counterparts.
While buzzworthy enough at an event based in extravagance and excess, an aquarium might very well be the single most ridiculous thing we've ever seen in any kind of vehicle – imagine those poor little fish trying to survive the tsunami created when the driver tests out the max acceleration claims. And who's going to feed them when this car is parked away in a large, dark exotic-car garage for months or years on end?
The aquarium is the most obvious talking point of the distinctive interior, but it isn't the only one. Also of note is the delicate center console, which cascades off the dashboard to support a hovering control deck at the driver's right hand.
We'll update with powertrain details and other specs if and when we hear back from Frangivento, but we simply couldn't rest our minds for the weekend knowing pressing news about "possibly the world's most expensive aquarium" was floating out there unreported. Hopefully, we're in time to spare you from buying a supercar without a built-in aquarium. According to a media alert released by Top Marques, you'll have to wait about two years for the chance to buy the Asfané at around €1.5 million (approx. US$1.6 million).
If that's not enough to push you well over your eccentric car designer ridiculousness threshold for the week, we think video below of the helicopter shoot might just do it. We've also pulled out some stills from that video and put them in the photo gallery for a slower tour of the Asfané's wild styling.
Source: Frangivento
