Treat Yourself to This Rare Tritan A2 Domino’s Pizza Delivery Car
This funky three-wheeled ride was once thought to be the future of pizza delivery.
Pizza and car connoisseurs rejoice. You can now buy a 1984 Tritan A2 via Facebook Marketplace; a funky car once commissioned by Domino's Pizza to become the future of pizza delivery.
The Tritan A2, which is short for Aerocar 2, was manufactured by Tritan Ventures, a now-defunct automobile maker from Ann Arbor, Michigan. In the mid-'80s, Domino's contracted Tritan to build ten A2s for a prototype delivery car. The idea was to test the cars at select locations and eventually roll them out across the U.S. as an innovative means to deliver pizza.
A 30-horsepower, 440cc air-cooled Syvaro rotary engine powers the 899-pound A2 , enabling the car to crawl from zero to 60 in around 17 seconds. Its unique wedge-shaped styling relied heavily on aerodynamics to make the car fuel efficient and require less power than a typical car. A three-wheel layout also classified the car as a motorcycle in many states, which leads us to believe this is what Domino's was banking on for its speedy delivery promises.
The car's entry system is very aircraft-like, pushing the wrap-around windshield and roof forward to mimic a cockpit. Inside, there are two center-positioned seats (one presumably dedicated to pizza) and a telescoping steering wheel.
But, alas, just like Tritan Ventures and the 30-minute pizza promise, the project went belly-up and production ceased. Domino's is now piloting semi-autonomous pizza delivery instead.
Reportedly, only seven of these ten examples have been recovered. In 2016 it was believed that two examples lived with one owner in Canada, while three others were bound to museums as a show pieces in Mississippi, South Dakota and Japan. This makes the A2 one of only two known examples in the wild.
To add to the weirdness, this is the third time that an A2 has popped up for sale in the past two years and twice in the past two weeks. If you have a keen eye, you may have noticed the Tupelo Automobile Museum in Mississippi recently announced its closure and liquidation; one of its 160 cars happens to be a Tritan A2. We're not sure if it's the same car, but the current owner says that this is example number five. It appears that the remaining known street car, example number two, may still be in California.
The last time an A2 had popped up for sale in 2016 the asking price was a mere $6,200. This time, if you want to pick up the classic example, you'll be footing a bill of $23,000, the same price as 3,840 Domino's medium-size pizzas.