Alfa Romeo Scighera: The 90s Prototype That Never Made It

Now, on to some history: The Alfa Romeo Scighera is one of the finest examples of the 1990s boldness in car culture design by Alfa Romeo. This futuristic Italdesign concept creation is a tribute to the automobile racing legacy of Alfa Romeo, combined with the exploratory crusade of automotive designs in itself. Although the Scighera has seen the light to the public in 1997, it was designed to be like a race car for the road, combining modern designs and characteristics of an ‘Alfa classic.’ With a terrific look, incredible performance capabilities, alas, this car essentially passed, joining the long line of very rare prototypes.

Design and Specification:

A classic example of Italian automotive design, then, was not just demonstrating aerodynamic features but was also an incredibly high-tech state-of-the-art. The long and sagging nose owed much to the influence of Formula One motor cars, while the front lip doubled as integrated front wing, thereby successfully generating down-force, that unmistakable V shape in front an echo of the classic Alfa Romeo star. “Clown-eyes” headlamps became part of the car’s designs.

The most notable design feature that can be found is the glass roof stretching from the front to the sides of the car, inspired by Alfa Romeo’s racing machines from the 1950s and 1960s. Horse had also strapped unique gullwing doors borrowed from Nazca C2, allowing for outward opening doors having window opening in a gullwing mechanism. Windows could be taken off, transforming the car into an open-top two-seater, rendering the correct unique characteristic of the concept vehicle.

The back of the vehicle sported a huge carbon fiber engine cover that was molded as a single piece, which made accessing the mechanical components an easy task. It had thin tail lamps and a third-brake light incorporated at the main rear wing section. The two-stage opening of the engine cover rendered practical access to the car’s fueling chamber and engine.

EN: Engines and their performance:

The Scighera was founded on the platform of the Alfa Romeo 164. The Scighera had a full aluminum body and a composite aluminum-carbon fiber frame. The 3.0L twin turbocharged V6 engine from Alfa Romeo powered the Scighera. “that meant it dodged the possibility of being 400 horsepower at 7,500 rpm and 367 lb-ft (443 N⋅m) torque under its hood,” as stated by someone who had this engine coupled with the Alfa Romeo 155-derived all-wheel drive.

The Scighera is all set for speed; the speedometer would crank up 0 to 60 mph in 3.7 seconds and would hit the top 186 mph (299 km/h) in no time. Figures like this put the car in the class of performance cars of its time, rivaling many of the production supercars available at the end of the 1990s.

It even thought about stripping the interior, placing a massive fixed rear wing, and taking away gullwing doors for the racing variant of the Scighera. There was even a provision for a small production run for homologation, which unfortunately never materialized.