UK's "Phase IV"

[Nick Short]

I've been thinking about this for a while, and the closest thing to a Phase IV I could think of in the UK was this, the RS1700T. It was in planning for 3 years for competition and road use, before Ford pulled the plug in 1983. Hardly any road or race cars had been built, and none officially, so the remaining handful are worth a fair bit. Other than that I can't off the top of my head think of any, although there are a few by other manufacturers - Lancia's ECV of 1986 for one. Built for the upcoming Group S (which was an evolution of Group B and was canned at the same time as the demise of Group B), it was a composite-shelled lightweight hatchback with a forced induction 600 bhp engine and 4WD. Only one of those was built before Group S was banned and the project was aborted. And Alfa Romeo built a single 164 silhouette car, for the ridiculous (and quickly banned) touring car formula that required the cars to be F1 mechanicals covered in a production car shell (or at least a composite version of it)!! Thankfully good sense prevailed, as these cars had no downforce, but 200mph top speeds. A disaster waiting to happen...
Can anyone else think of cars that, like the Phase IV, were planned for competition but were stillborn?

[ferrari fan]

Yes
Volkswagen did biult a twin engine car to get 4 wheel drive but had great difficulties linking the two together (before Computers)
this did not work and the Audi Quatro came from it.
I think that the car in Q was a Sirocco shelled one with twin Golf GTI blocks.
And how about this Scimitar stationwagen with a Merlin Spifire donk in it that terrorised the German Autobahn and was thought off by the German officials as a test car from RR:D
There are many more incl the Brabham F1 and Williams who build actual cars to test the Variomatic (DAF) gearingsystem and tested them
Williams also did build a 6 wheeler (rear)
The Alfa Bimotore with the Scuderia Ferrari shields on it also comes to mind

[Nick Short]

I'm sure there have been many purely competition cars that were one-off development cars (like the Alfa Procar), but I was thinking mainly of cars that, like the Phase IV, were to be road registered as well; in other words homologation specials. Group B was a good example, with 200 cars built, most ending up on the road, and there were to be 200 RS1700Ts but only just over 10 were built. The 200 engines were developed into the RS200 motor, so they weren't wasted.

[ferrari fan]

Here in OZ. an Alfa Sud was put on steroids with a midmounted V8 in it.
The correct name escapes me but is something like Richotto (cheese):D
only a certain number were made and are wanted by the Enthusiasts.

[Pedro]

The name of the Aussie Supercar is Giocattolo which is Italian for toy or play thing. There were only 15 built and were based on the Alfa Romeo GTV6 body. The engine was built to the same specifications as the VL Walkinshaw engine ,and was built by HSV for these cars 0-100 in 5.4sec. For more information go to www.giocattolo.com.au:cool:

[Esses]

British Leyland (& Leyland Aust., I think) built twin-engine Mini-Moke proto-types for their respective Armies as light-weight parachutable 4WD's. They worked quite well, apparently, but weren't taken up as they were only 2-seaters, of course, with the rear power-unit filling up the back.

[Glen Alexander]

The Giocattolo was the car Todd Wilkes crashed in at Eastern Creek. His had a ballistic twin turbo V8 in it though, pretty cool looking cars. There's another one at Roman Autotek in Rhodes, Sydney. It's a white one, just sitting in their showroom.

[intercooled]

Porsche built some Volkswagon Transporters that were based on 911 turbo chassis and engines and used them as high speed autobahn limousines to take three or four executives to meetings so they could work en route.
One of the UK car magazines tested one and said it was great fun flashing big Beemers at 140mph in the outside lane of the 'bahn to pass in a VW van. Worked very well, apparently.

A German tuning company now sell twin engined four wheel drive Audi TTs.

All the best
Sandy

[Nick Short]

There was one of those Giocattolos for sale in Unique Cars a while back, for some silly money! An amazing car. But was it built for homologation purposes, or just as a ridiculously fast road car? Renault built an Espace people carrier powered by their F1 engine, just for fun, but that was never intended to go on the road, just look as if it did. TVR built a Speed 12, with a 7.7 litre V12, and although it was quite successful on the track they had to pull the road car project because it was producing over 1000hp and that was thought to be a bit much.....But none of these fits the "Phase IV" criteria - that the car has to have been a factory road car, designed for homologation of the race car, and which was canned after only a handful of examples were built. It's always going to be the road-going competition cars that are the most exciting, and those which are rare as hen's teeth are even more so!

[Nick Short]

I've just remembered the silly GT1 sports racer cars of the second half of the 90s, when manufacturers had to built "at least one" road-registered version of their car in order to be allowed to race at Le Mans etc. The Nissan R390, Toyota GTOne, Porsche GT1, Mercedes CLK GTR etc were all built and registered (in some cases just one example, although Porsche and Mercedes built short runs) before everyone realised what a stupid rule that was and changed it. Exciting cars though! It was clearly an attempt to get back to the days of the 60s, when cars were often driven down to Le Mans and then back again. The Belgian-run Ferrari GTOs that ran at Le Mans in 1963 were driven back after the race, but stopped in the redlight district of Paris for a night on the town, just left parked in the street overnight before heading home! And that I think is why the Phase III and contemporary Aussie cars were so exciting - they were built to race, but you could drive one legally on the road. Since the Phase IV was pulled cars have been a shadow of those racing on the track in Australia, although Holden's A9X and Group A cars were pretty hot.

[Graeme]

Along with the death of the Phase IV in 1972, Holden killed off it's XU-1 V8 program for which three road-going prototypes were apparently built via Harry Firth and the Holden Dealer Team, and Chrysler watered-down it's E55 340 V8 Charger by fitting the production version with an automatic transmission, and calling it a 770 SE instead of a new version of the R/T.

Ford had Dick Johnson toy with a turbocharged XF Falcon for Group A, but this idea didn't progress beyond Dick's one built up road car. There were some XE 'Grand Prix' turbo and non-turbo cars built through Dick Johnson, but these were not homologation factory-supported cars.

As with the RPO83 and XA GT, Holden built some 'HO' versions of the L34 Torana. You had to specify the High Performance option and for an extra $1500 you got the Holley, roller rockers, high pressure fuel system and other bits that turned the car into a real race car. I have the original L34 parts catalogue but don't know how many of the 'full-house' L34s were actually dealer-supplied.

The Giacattolo was devised by Paul Halstead who operated the 'Toy Shop' and was the ingenious importer of Lamborghini and DeTomaso cars in Australia. He reduced the cost of DeTomaso cars by importing them without the driveline ....at the time, the 5.8 Ford engines and transmissions were being supplied from Oz to Italy for DeTomaso, so it was great thinking on Paul's part. The first of his Giacattolos had a rear mounted Alfa GTV6 engine, but Holden Engine Company did a deal for Group A V8 engines which they also lobbied heavily to supply to TVR in England for their sports cars. The Giacattolo was not intended for racing, but rather to be an Australian interpretation of the TVR / DeTomaso concept.

[jager]

The name of the Aussie Supercar is Giocattolo which is Italian for toy or play thing. There were only 15 built and were based on the Alfa Romeo GTV6 body.

I don't want to take anything away from the Giocattolo or its builders, but the concept originated with Alfa Romeo. In 1983, Alfa Romeo were looking for something to replace the Group A GTV6 which had won the European Touring Car Championship. They decided to build a homologation special of 200 cars using an Alfasud Sprint (at that time a 1.5 litre FWD) that used the larger GTV6's 2.5 litre V6 engine mid mounted behind the driver that drove the rear wheels. Like so many projects it was cancelled by the beancounters after just a few cars had been built. There is more info on the Alfa Sprint 6V here :

http://home.t-online.de/home/Rauen/as6ve.html

The Giocattolo was not born until 1986 and was simply the continued development of a project started by Alfa Romeo. Admittedly by the time it had the 5 litre Holden engine it was a different beast to the car Alfa Romeo had envisaged. More detail on the Giocattolo is available here :-

http://www.giocattolo.com.au/history.htm

[Pedro]

Lets not forget the latest in the Australian Supercar League the HSV 427 when this beast rolls out of the HSV garages it should blow any Australian performance car built up to now into the weeds. Another one for Trevor & Bev for the ever filling Garage?:cool: