The Machimoto was a concept vehicle created by Italdesign Giugiaro, presented at the Turin motor show as an attempt to merge the concepts of car and motorcycle, its name a combination of the Italian words macchina and moto. It took the form of an open, single-volume barchetta-style body designed to seat between six and nine occupants across two parallel bench-type saddle seats plus a rear individual seat, with bodywork made of glass-fibre reinforced plastic.
The car was built on a tubular steel chassis with two parallel longitudinal members, into which the running gear and floorpan of a Volkswagen Golf were mounted. Giugiaro noted that the chassis could theoretically have accepted any front-drive mechanical package, including a 4x4 system, and there had originally been an intention to combine it with Volkswagen's Syncro four-wheel-drive system, though Volkswagen did not support the idea since it had not yet developed such a combination itself. Volkswagen had separately developed its own car/motorcycle hybrid concept, the three-wheeled Scooter concept car. The Machimoto instead used the Golf GTI's 16-valve engine, a 1781 cc four-cylinder unit with double overhead camshafts producing 139 hp at 6100 rpm and 168 Nm of torque at 4600 rpm, driving the front wheels.
Styling drew heavily on motorcycle design cues, including partial wheel covers resembling motorcycle forks, a low windscreen rising from the nose evoking a motorcycle fairing, and a rear section kept low in the manner of a motorcycle tail, which incorporated a full luggage compartment. The rear wheel-fork extension doubled as a hinged, forward-opening door and echoed the visual line of a saddle and fuel tank. A detachable roll bar was integrated into the design. The steering wheel featured T-shaped spokes with folding handles that could be extended to form motorcycle-style handlebars, or folded upward into a crank position, and the steering column's rake was adjustable to suit either a car-like or motorcycle-like riding posture. Two retractable U-shaped grab handles were fitted between the seating rows for support. The main instruments were carried over from the Volkswagen Golf, supplemented with additional analogue and digital displays, including a compass, barometer and satellite navigation system, none of which were functional.
The car retained the Golf's original wheelbase of 2475 mm, with a track of 1425/1420 mm and overall dimensions of 3985 mm long, 1680 mm wide and 1630 mm tall (1100 mm without the roll bar). It was shown alongside a related design, the Italdesign Orbit, at the same event, and remained a one-off concept.
