Did you know Porsche once built a gullwing wedge concept, and then it burned to a crisp?
Remember when Porsche went full 1970s wedge? Probably not
Here is a slice of forgotten Porsche history that deserves more love. Long before the brand's design language settled into the familiar, a young Giorgetto Giugiaro turned a humble Porsche 914 into one of the wildest wedges of the era: the 1970 Tapiro. Four gullwing doors, a screaming flat-six and knife-edge styling. And then, sadly, it went up in flames.
A young genius and a bold brief
The Tapiro was only the fourth prototype from Italdesign, the studio Giugiaro had co-founded just two years earlier, and it made its debut at the 1970 Turin Motor Show. Giugiaro described it as intentionally extreme in its shapes and solutions, yet still conceived with mass production in mind. Its abrupt lines, straight edges and pronounced corners threw out the soft styling of the 1960s entirely, and it is widely credited as one of the very first cars to fully embrace the wedge shape that would go on to define supercar design for a decade.
Clever engineering under the sharp skin
Underneath, the Tapiro used a Porsche 914/6 chassis, with a mid-mounted 2.4-litre flat-six producing around 220 hp at a heady 7,800 rpm. The party piece was the doors: four gullwing openings in total, two for the cabin and two for the engine bay, all hung off a distinctive central steel cross structure that cleverly doubled as both the hinge carrier and a roll-bar. Foldaway lights hidden under a square overhang completed the futuristic look.
A tragic ending
Here is the sad part. The Tapiro was a one-off, and it eventually passed into private ownership. Then, at some point in the 1980s, disaster struck: following a car accident, the unique prototype was found completely burned out. One of Giugiaro's most important early designs, a genuine milestone in automotive styling, was effectively lost to fire, which is exactly why so few people remember it today.
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We adore stories like this. The Tapiro is a reminder of an era when a single show car could genuinely change the direction of car design, and when a young Giugiaro was casually inventing the visual language that would shape everything from the Lotus Esprit to the DeLorean. That he did it on a modest Porsche 914 makes it all the more charming. This is the same restless creativity that still runs through cars like the Giugiaro-linked Bizzarrini revival today.
Its fiery fate only adds to the myth. A radical, four-gullwing-door Porsche wedge that most people have never heard of, lost forever to a fire, is exactly the kind of half-forgotten gem that makes digging into car history so rewarding. So next time someone tells you Porsche plays it safe with design, remind them of the Tapiro. We wish it had survived.
