Alfa Romeo Disco Volante awarded prestigious design award

As voted by the public, the prestigious Concorso d'Eleganza Design Award under the Concept Cars & Prototypes category was awarded to the striking Alfa Romeo Disco Volante by Touring Superleggera. After its success at the recent Geneva show, the Alfa Romeo Disco Volante, was submitted as an entrant at the Concorso d'Eleganza - courtesy of Mr Melvin Goh, Managing Director of EuroSports Auto, who also owns the bespoke car.

The Disco Volante is a two-seater Gran Turismo, based on the Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione coupe with its front-central mounted 4.7-litre V8 engine and a transaxle rear drive with unmodified specifications. Each unit requires 4,000 hours of manual work and is built on demand.

The lightweight and slippery Alfa Romeo C52 'Disco Volante' was considered a design icon when it saw the light of day in 1952 - with the unique basic design even registered as a 'design patent'. The Alfa Romeo Disco Volante by Touirng celebrates the myth of the 1952 style icon. The new design briefing required to blend ingredients as innovation, emotion and aerodynamic properties into a timeless and essential shape.

During the development stage, Head of Design Louis de Fabribeckers and his team cooperated with the engineers on an almost daily basis. "We focused on the preservation of the design essence. Once the design frozen, we had to understand the manufacturing problems and solve them right away without compromising the design," said de Fabribeckers.

The light and compact 4.7-litre V8 engine delivers 450bhp and 480Nm of peak torque. It is coupled with a six-speed sequential transaxle gearbox with electronic control and paddle-shift gear selection. The Disco Volante can accelerate to 100km/h in 4.2 seconds and has a top speed of about 290km/h.