The Alfa Romeo Nuvola is a

concept car A concept car (also known as a concept vehicle, show vehicle or prototype) is a car made to showcase new styling and/or new technology. They are often exhibited at motor shows to gauge customer reaction to new and radical designs which may or ...

with coupé body first shown by

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." "A ...

at the '' Mondial de l'Automobile'' Paris motor show in 1996. Nuvola literally means "cloud" in Italian, but also hints to the legendary Italian racing driver

Tazio Nuvolari Tazio Giorgio Nuvolari (; 16 November 1892 – 11 August 1953) was an Italian racing driver. He first raced motorcycles and then concentrated on sports cars and single-seaters. A resident of Mantua, he was known as 'Il Mantovano Volante' ( ...

. The Nuvola has a front-mounted engine and four wheel drive. The prototype is currently on display at the Alfa Romeo Historical Museum in

Arese Arese ( lmo, Ares ) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Metropolitan City of Milan in the Italian region Lombardy, about northwest of Milan. Arese borders the following municipalities: Lainate, Garbagnate Milanese, Bollate, Rho, Milan. Arese ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

Concept and design

This concept car was intended both as a future design manifesto and a

technology demonstrator A technology demonstration (or tech demo), also known as demonstrator model, is a prototype, rough example or an otherwise incomplete version of a conceivable product or future system, put together as proof of concept with the primary purpose of ...

, the idea behind it being the rebirth of the coachbuilt automobile: Alfa Romeo would have supplied

rolling chassis A rolling chassis is the chassis without bodywork of a motor vehicle ( car, truck, bus, or other vehicle), assembled with suspension and wheels. Heavy vehicles Separate chassis remain in use for almost all heavy vehicles ranging from pickup ...

to be bodied by independent coachbuilders, and possibly sold through Alfa Romeo dealers. To achieve this stylistic flexibility the car was based on a modern space frame chassis with a separate body; it was designed to handle virtually any body style, from coupé to roadster to

shooting brake Shooting brake (sometimes mis-identified as "shooting break") is a car body style which originated in the 1890s as a horse-drawn wagon used to transport shooting parties with their equipment and game. The first automotive shooting brakes were ...

. The Nuvola was penned by a group of young designers from Centro Stile Alfa Romeo, at the time headed by

Walter de Silva Walter Maria de Silva (born 27 February 1951 in Lecco, Italy) is an Italian car designer and former head of Volkswagen Group Design, until 2015. Since beginning his car design career in 1972 as trainee car designer for Fiat's Style Centre. De Sil ...

. It featured LED

lighting Lighting or illumination is the deliberate use of light to achieve practical or aesthetic effects. Lighting includes the use of both artificial light sources like lamps and light fixtures, as well as natural illumination by capturing daylig ...

and bumpers fully integrated in the shape of the bodywork.

Specifications

The Nuvola is a 2-door, 2-seat coupé with a polyester body coupled to a welded tubular steel space frame. It is powered by a

longitudinal Longitudinal is a geometric term of location which may refer to: * Longitude ** Line of longitude, also called a meridian * Longitudinal engine, an internal combustion engine in which the crankshaft is oriented along the long axis of the vehicl ...

2.5 litre (2492 cc),

twin-turbo Twin-turbo (not to be confused with a twincharger setup, which is a combination of a supercharger and a turbocharger) refers to an engine in which two turbochargers work in tandem to compress the intake fuel/air mixture (or intake air, in the case ...

, 60-degree Alfa Romeo V6 engine coupled to a 6-speed manual transmission and

four-wheel drive Four-wheel drive, also called 4×4 ("four by four") or 4WD, refers to a two-axled vehicle drivetrain capable of providing torque to all of its wheels simultaneously. It may be full-time or on-demand, and is typically linked via a transfer cas ...

. The engine puts out at 6000 rpm and at 3000 rpm, making the Nuvola capable of a top speed of and 0 to acceleration in 6 seconds. AR-Nuvola-2

References

{{Alfa Romeo Nuvola All-wheel-drive vehicles