The Alfa Romeo Scarabeo II is a concept car engineered by

Giuseppe Busso Giuseppe Busso was an Alfa Romeo and Ferrari technical designer born in Turin. He graduated as an industrial designer and in 1967 began working for Fiat's aviation engine department. In January 1969 he moved to Alfa Romeo where he worked under th ...

for

Alfa Romeo Alfa Romeo Automobiles S.p.A. () is an Italian luxury car manufacturer and a subsidiary of Stellantis. The company was founded on 24 June 1910, in Milan, Italy. "Alfa" is an acronym of its founding name, "Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili." ...

. The car uses a modified Alfa Romeo GT Junior Z body and it shares internals with the Alfa Romeo Alfetta and Alfa Romeo 2000 GT Veloce.

Background

Despite the rejection of the

Scarabeo The Scarabeo is a scooter model produced by the Italian motorcycle manufacturer Aprilia. Available in different displacements, it was first presented to the public in 1993. Initially born as a model within the Aprilia range, today Scarabeo is a ...

project by Alfa Romeo management, Giuseppe Busso continued to push the development of a cheap racing-oriented

coupé A coupe or coupé (, ) is a passenger car with a sloping or truncated rear roofline and two doors. The term ''coupé'' was first applied to horse-drawn carriages for two passengers without rear-facing seats. It comes from the French past parti ...

. After the introduction of the Alfetta in 1972, he saw an opportunity for a shared-platform car and began work on the Scarabeo II.

The car

To reduce manufacturing costs, Busso designed the Scarabeo II to use the gearbox, rear axle, front suspension, and front chassis of the Alfetta. He also discarded the idea of a refined

Alfa Romeo GTA The Alfa Romeo GTA is a coupé automobile manufactured by the Italian manufacturer Alfa Romeo from 1965 to 1971. It was made for racing (Corsa) and road use (Stradale). Giulia GTA In 1962, the successor for the very popular Giulietta series wa ...

engine, instead using the

Inline-four engine A straight-four engine (also called an inline-four) is a four-cylinder piston engine where cylinders are arranged in a line along a common crankshaft. The vast majority of automotive four-cylinder engines use a straight-four layout (with the ...

from the Alfa Romeo 2000 GT Veloce. The rear of the chassis remained similar to the Scarabeo. In a further effort to save development costs, a modified Alfa Romeo GT Junior Z body was used. The body was fitted with a wider track, a roof scoop, and metal grills instead of rear windows. Despite the impressive

Price–performance ratio In economics, engineering, business management and marketing the price–performance ratio is often written as cost–performance, cost–benefit or capability/price (C/P), refers to a product's ability to deliver performance, of any sort, for it ...

, the Scarabeo II failed to gain traction among the Alfa Romeo management. Doomed to rejection, the car was finished and subsequently put in the Alfa Romeo Museum, where it currently resides.

References

{{Auto-stub Rear mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive vehicles Scarabeo II Cars introduced in 1973 Sports cars Coupés