There are certain upsides to the 1985 Domino’s delivery car that is now up for auction. For example, the car is decidedly a collectible, as just one of 10 Tritan A2 cars ever ordered by Domino’s founder Tom Monaghan. Each vehicle was originally customized with warming ovens in the back, although the one up for auction no longer contains such an oven.
The car isn’t just rare, either—it’s also aerodynamic. The 900-pound, low-to-the-ground ride is equipped with a 440cc air-cooled Syvaro rotary engine that produces 30 horsepower and can travel up to 80 miles on one gallon of gas.
For those considering buying the vehicle, however, there are some downsides. The ride can be majorly disrupted by virtually any bump in the road, or, heaven forbid, a pothole. In other words, the vehicle should be shown off at car shows rather than used to drive around town. The vehicle is being sold with a trailer to help haul it around.
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“This thing turns some heads—it’s a crowd pleaser,” said Chuck Sinnott, the current owner of the vehicle who lives in California’s Central Valley. “But my wife and I can’t jump in it and go to Monterey.”
The Tritan Domino’s delivery car, one of the few that is known to still exist, will be up for sale at a classic car auction in Las Vegas on November 10. Sinnott said he had previously bought the car from a Domino’s franchisee in 2021 for about $25,000. If so, he got a good deal: another version of the car was auctioned off by Bonham’s in 2019 and sold for $44,000.
“Both its legal status as a motorcycle (thanks to its 3-wheel layout) and high efficiency caught the eye of pizza giant Dominos (sic),” read Bonham’s description of the vehicle. “10 were contracted to be built and later trialed by Dominoes (sic) at various locations to test the viability of the vehicle as a new delivery machine. Unfortunately, there was no future for the Aerocar in this line of work and it was not adopted for nationwide use. Just a few are believed to be extant with one presented here within Tupelo (Mississippi).”
Even if they ultimately turned out to be a failed experiment, the Aerocars are an interesting footnote in the Domino’s brand’s ongoing quest to push the envelope in the pizza-delivery space. More recently Domino’s has been implementing electric cars and testing out self-driving delivery vehicles.
Perhaps someday, one of Domino’s self-driving robotic delivery cars will be up for auction, and we’ll all look back at those as quaint relics. Maybe by then self-driving drones will be dropping Domino’s pizzas out of the sky.
