The Zagato Zele was a small electric car built by the famed Italian design house Zagato of Milan who were better known for designing some of the most exotic and beautiful cars available for marques such as Aston Martin, Lancia and Alfa Romeo.

The Zele was conceived at the time of the fuel crisis in the mid 1970's and was produced between 1974 and 1976.

Total production run was somewhere in the low hundreds; it was a rare car in period and is even more so today.

Three variants were produced, the 1000, 1500 and 2000, each referring to increased power output.

With a glass fibre bodywork over a steel framed chassis, it was derived from the Fiat 500 and Fiat 124 and powered by four 12volt batteries.

The batteries were easily charged simply by plugging them directly into the mains supply, via a transformer.

Presented today, is a 1974 Zele 1000 that arrived into the UK from Italy earlier this year.

It had always resided in the Pisa area of Italy and was previously in the ownership of U...