Isotta Fraschini Tipo 8A Landaulet

Vehicle Overview

The Isotta Fraschini 8A chassis 1237 by Carrozzeria Cesare Sala of Milan—crafted in 1927 with a stately Landaulet body—was no ordinary commission. It was ordered under the gilded authority of none other than Empress Zewditu of Ethiopia, the first female sovereign of modern Africa, whose reign straddled the sacred and the secular like few before or after her. This motorcar, long and elegant, carried the scent of European craftsmanship but bore within it the quiet gravity of empire. Zewditu, born Askala Maryam in 1876, ascended the throne in 1916 after the deposition of Lij Yasu, and was thereafter renamed Zewditu—”the Crown.” Her coronation, held on February 11, 1917, beneath the domes of the Cathedral of St. George in Addis Ababa (the city her father founded), marked a rare moment in world history: a woman crowned not queen consort, but empress regnant, over a nation ancient and sovereign. The Isotta, with its sweeping fenders and half-open roof—a silhouette both commanding and contemplative—reflected her dual nature. Conservative and devoutly religious, Zewditu clung fiercely to the old ways, even as her regent and heir, Ras Tafari Makonnen, moved Ethiopia steadily toward reform and modern diplomacy. The vehicle, too, seemed a blend of epochs: baroque in posture, yet humming with the modern engineering spirit of the roaring twenties. Zewditu never bore children, yet she mothered a nation through a turbulent moment of transition, all while cloaked in royal silence and velvet protocol. She was, in many ways, Africa’s own Queen Victoria, with whispers that she modeled parts of her court and symbolism on the British matriarch.