IEDEI

I had never heard of the ISO LELE until today.  In fact I don’t even remember ever seeing a picture or anything of it.  Much to my surprise I was thumbling through some UK classic car mag and saw a yellow one plastered all around a couple of pages.  The first thing I thought was that it looked like a rejected Bertone concept—-the Montreal-style eyelids in the front, and the swooping Espada-like side profile.  I have to say having come home and looked at some more photos—-i’m starting to see some of the 1969 Frua-inspired ‘coupe’  wedge design influences on the car pop up more.    The car was penned by Gandini, which would explain this whoring of design features.

Oh, and it had a GM or a Ford sourced V8 under the hood (depending on the year it was produced between 1969 and 1974—which makes it sort of like an illegal immigrant version of a ‘wannabe’ Montreal, really….

Fascinating car.  Always nice to discover new things in the world of automobiles.

all photos taken from: Concept Carz

here’s a short video i found of one being pulled out of storage and onto a flatbed.  It has interesting proportions, looks a lot more ‘practical’ in shape compared to other ISOs of the time.

also a primitive, yet informative page about the Lele:

http://www.californiaclassix.com/archive/72_Iso_Lele_c107.html