Giocattolo

Giocattolo

Rear view

The Giocattolo Motori Pty. Ltd. was an Australian automobile manufacturer from Caloundra , Queensland , founded in 1986 by sports car enthusiast Paul Halstead and Formula 1 designer Barry Lock . The Italian word for toys was used as the company name (company).

history

The Giocattolo was originally based on a heavily modified Alfa Romeo Alfasud Sprint with a V6 mid-engine . After the 4th prototype it was found that the V6 engine could only be imported and installed in Australia with difficulty and at high cost. Therefore the company used the Sprint four-cylinder model. The Alfa Romeo V6 was replaced by a V8 engine from HSV , which was also installed in the rear. In addition to the lower price, the HSV engine offered a higher performance than the originally planned Alfa Romeo engine. The maximum speed of the V8 Giocattolo was determined to be 257 km / h. It is not known what happened to the four-cylinder engines and transmissions that were removed from the Sprint imported from Italy.

Including the 3rd prototype, which was originally fitted with the Alfa Romeo V6 and converted to the HSV V8 after a police car accident that almost completely destroyed it, only 15 Giocattolo cars were built before the company Had to close its doors in 1989. 13 of these 15 cars are said to still exist today, one is no longer known and one - with the chassis no. 007 - Was destroyed in a high-speed accident at Eastern Creek Raceway in February 2001, killing driver, 29-year-old Todd Wilkes .

The 3rd prototype appeared on the television show Beyond 2000 .

Engines

Manufacturer	design type	Displacement	power
Alfa Romeo	6 V	2495 cc	158 bhp (116 kW)
HSV	8 V	4998 cc	185 bhp (136 kW)

Web links

Commons : Giocattolo  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Website with the Giocattolo story
• Allcarindex (accessed November 15, 2015)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Giocattolo . Alfasud.Alfisti.net (English) ( Memento of the original from October 5, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.