Back in the day, you used to take your car's frame to a coachbuilder, who would then put together a body for you. Despite the preponderance of unibody vehicles where the frame is integrated into the general structure, coachbuilders still exist, and they're still building interesting cars. This might be one of them.
Castagna Milano took a Fiat 500L -- the same model the Pope used during his US tour -- and reimagined it as a new type of taxi for the island of Capri, off the coast of Italy. Capri relies on older Fiat models at the moment, and what you see here attempts to capture some of that open-top mystique.
While the front is largely unchanged, save for a few aesthetic tweaks, the rear end is...different. The whole rear of the vehicle's been opened, extended and finished with teak wood. It's protected against the elements with a soft top fastened by zippers and Velcro. The roof's been updated with a brushed-steel look to reflect some of the sun's rays. Inside, the 500L received Alcantara trimmings and a thorough reupholstering.
It's an interesting execution, to say the least, and it's at least more interesting to look at than the El-Camino-esque Fiats currently occupying Capri's taxi fleet. But that rear end has so many conflicting elements, even if they're very well done. It's one of the stranger cars we've seen in recent memory, that's for sure.