Domino's delivery car from the 1980s now up for auction
(CNN) — The 1985 Domino's Pizza delivery car looks more like it was designed to shoot down invading alien spacecraft than to bring you a hot delicious pepperoni pie. But back in the '80s, Domino's founder Tom Monaghan ordered 10 Tritan A2 cars and customized them with warming ovens in the back to deliver pizzas around Ann Arbor, Michigan, where Domino's is headquartered.
Just a few survive today. One of them is being offered for sale at a Las Vegas classic car auction on Nov. 10. Even the car's current owner admits it's pretty terrible to drive and probably wasn't even that great at delivering pizza. But it does look awfully cool.
The Tritan A2 was designed by engineers James Amick and his son Douglas. It's similar to a series of other vehicles they designed with large arch-shaped rear wings. The wings were designed to capture crosswinds to help provide forward propulsion, like a sail, along with electric motors or gasoline engines. It's unclear if this particular model, with its relatively modest rear wing, benefits appreciably from wind propulsion. (CNN attempted to reach Douglas Amick but has not received a response).
The downside of the car's arrowhead shape is that it's not very practical as an automobile. The pizza oven was removed long ago, but still, the A2 can carry only two people, one behind the other. (With its fiberglass body riding on only three wheels, the A2 is actually considered a motorcycle for regulatory purposes.) Instead of traditional doors, it has a canopy that slides forward so occupants can get in and out.
It rides very low to the ground, so a pothole could be ruinous, and outward visibility is poor, said Chuck Sinnott, the car's current owner, who lives in central California.
Sinnot has mostly taken it on a trailer to local car shows where he might drive a few short laps around a parking lot just to show it off, he said. The custom motorcycle trailer will be included in the auction sale.
"This thing turns some heads. It's a crowd pleaser," said Sinnott, "But my wife and I can't jump in it and go to Monterey."
The Tritan is very aerodynamic and can get up to 80 miles per gallon from its tiny engine, according to Bonham's, which sold one of the cars in 2019.
Sinnott said he bought the car in 2021 for about $25,000 from a Domino's franchise owner. To help finance the purchase, he sold another car, a replica of the canopy-topped custom Plymouth Volaré wagon seen in the TV show "Fantasy Island." He would not say if he plans to buy something else with the money he gets from this auction.
Mecum Auctions did not provide a value estimate for the Tritan A2. The one Bonham's sold in 2019 went for $44,800. Domino's did not respond to questions about the Tritan A2.
Over the years, Dominos has experimented with a variety of specialized pizza-delivery vehicles, including, in more recent years, modified electric cars and fully autonomous pizza-delivery machines.
