Alfa Romeo Borrows Porsche’s Nardò Track to Test the 33 Stradale
The first Alfa Romeo supercar in decades is one step closer to production. The engineering team asked Porsche to borrow the famous Nardò track in Italy to put the 33 Stradale through a series of high-speed tests in order to confirm the specifications obtained from computer simulations. Spoiler alert: It’s fast.
Porsche purchased Nardò in 2012, but seeing an Italian car doing triple-digit speeds on the track is nevertheless fitting. (Fiat built the Nardò Technical Center in 1975.) The 1730-acre facility includes no fewer than 20 test tracks, including a 7.8-mile circle called the Nardò Ring, where carmakers often go for high-speed tests.
It’s on this track that a pre-production version of the new 33 Stradale hit its advertised top speed of 207 mph. Alfa Romeo also validated the zero-to-62-mph time, which stands at under three seconds, and got the opportunity to test the car’s aerodynamic profile and cooling system in real-world conditions. The brand was kind enough to publish a video that lets enthusiasts see—and hear!— the 33 Stradale in action.
The symphony comes from an evolution of the twin-turbocharged, 3.0-liter Nettuno V-6 that Maserati developed for the MC20, among other cars. Mid-mounted, it sends over 620 horsepower to the rear wheels via an eight-speed automatic transmission and an electronic limited-slip differential. For context, the original 33 Stradale, built from 1967 to 1969, was powered by a mid-mounted 2.0-liter V-8 engine.
Production of the 33 Stradale is limited to 33 units globally, and pricing starts at about $1.6 million. It’s too late to buy one, even if you’ve got a blank check with Alfa’s name on it; every build slot is already spoken for. Those lucky few on the short list can rest assured that deliveries are scheduled to start before the end of the year.
