Ironically, it's 2009, the year in which Fiat began its acquisition of Chrysler. And that year, a Swiss pilot had already experimented with bringing Europe and the USA closer together.
The driver is Alain Dürr, a Swiss specialist in drag racing, a discipline generally associated with the United States, but which is also practiced in Europe, with an FIA-approved championship. But even on the Old Continent, drag racing is associated with American muscle cars. So this Alfa Romeo Alfetta is a real original!
If the Alfetta had ended up in Mad Max
And here again, drag racing cars give rise to veritable mechanical Frankensteins. Beast of the day? A 1984 Alfa Romeo Alfetta GTV, with a special drag racing V8 engine prepared by Mopar, the American specialist in special preparations and parts, often associated with Dodge. The car is entered in the Super Pro Stock class.
So, obviously, there's not much left of the original GTV except for the silhouette. The car's structure has been modified, with reinforcements and a large opening on the hood to let the big compressor out. And with its black livery, this GTV is reminiscent of the Ford Interceptor from Mad Max!
The power of a current Ferrari hypercar
The compressor-equipped engine is mated to a drag-racing 2-speed Powerglide gearbox. The result is 1050 hp and 1080 nm of torque, about the power of a Ferrari SF-90 Stradale! All this is transmitted to the big rear tires, which squeal and smoke!
For the record, V8 GTVs have been developed in the past. Autodelta had developed two competition models, but without success. Better still, the Biscione's German importer felt that the market was promising, and commissioned Delta AutoTechnik to develop eight-cylinder GTVs. The result in 1977 was the GTV8 2.6i, based on the Montreal block. But Delta AutoTechnik went bankrupt and only 2-3 examples were built, instead of the hundreds planned. As a result, they did not enjoy the same success as the GTVs equipped with the Italian Busso V6.
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