Giocattolo Motori Pty Ltd was a short-lived

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

n car company, founded in 1986 by sports car enthusiast Paul Halstead and

Formula One Formula One (also known as Formula 1 or F1) is the highest class of international racing for open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The World Drivers' Championship, ...

designer Barry Lock. The company's name comes from the

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

word for "toy". The Giocattolo was originally based on a heavily modified

Alfa Romeo Sprint The Alfa Romeo Alfasud Sprint (later only Alfa Romeo Sprint) is a boxer-engined coupé produced by the Italian manufacturer Alfa Romeo from 1976 to 1989, and based on the Alfa Romeo Alfasud. 116,552 units of the Alfasud Sprint and Sprint were bui ...

body shell with a mid-mounted Alfa V6 engine. By the fourth prototype, the V6 engine had proved to be too difficult and expensive to import and install in the car, so the company replaced the projected V6 by a

Holden V8 engine The Holden V8 engine is an overhead valve (OHV) V8 engine that was produced by the Australian General Motors subsidiary, Holden (GMH), between 1969 and 2000. The engine was initially fitted to the Holden HT series in 1969 and was later utilise ...

built by

Holden Special Vehicles Holden Special Vehicles (HSV) was the officially designated performance vehicle division for Holden. Established in 1987 and based in Clayton, Victoria, the privately owned company modified Holden models such as the standard wheelbase Commodore, ...

. As well as being cheaper, these engines had more power than the Alfa engines they had originally intended to use; the reported top speed of the V8-powered Giocattolo was . Power was . It is unknown what happened to the factory Sprint engines and gearboxes that were taken from the cars. Including the Alfa-powered third prototype (which was rebuilt and re-fitted with the Holden V8 after an accident with a police car almost destroyed the vehicle), just fifteen Giocattolos were built before the company folded in 1989. Thirteen of the fifteen cars are believed to still be in existence and one is unaccounted for. The other - Build No. 007 - was infamously destroyed in a fiery high-speed crash at

Eastern Creek Raceway Sydney Motorsport Park (known until May 2012 as Eastern Creek International Raceway) is a motorsport circuit located on Brabham Drive, Eastern Creek (40-kilometres west of the Sydney CBD), New South Wales, Australia, adjacent to the Western Sy ...

in February 2001, killing the driver, 29-year-old Todd Wilkes. The third prototype appeared on the TV show ''

Beyond 2000 ''Beyond Tomorrow'' is an Australian television series produced by Beyond Television Productions. It began airing in 1981 as ''Towards 2000'', then in 1985 was renamed ''Beyond 2000'', a name the show kept until its cancellation in 1999. It the ...

''.

References

{{reflist

External links

Giocattolo History Site
Car manufacturers of Australia Defunct motor vehicle manufacturers of Australia Sports car manufacturers