The Alfa Romeo Nuvola concept car

Concept car

A concept vehicle or show vehicle is a car made to showcase new styling and or new technology. They are often shown at motor shows to gauge customer reaction to new and radical designs which may or may not have a chance of being produced....

 was released at the Paris International Auto Show in 1996. It is a 2-door coupe featuring a 2.5 litre (2492 cc), twin-turbo 60-degree V6 coupled with a 6-speed manual transmission which puts out 300 PS at 6000 rpm and 285 lbft at 3000 rpm. The car has a top speed of 174 mph (280 km/h) and can accelerate from zero to 60 mi/h in six seconds. The Nuvola was named after the legendary Italian race driver Tazio Nuvolari

Tazio Nuvolari

Tazio Giorgio Nuvolari was an Italian motorcycle and racecar driver, known as Il Mantovano Volante or Nivola. He was the 1932 European Champion in Grand Prix motor racing...

. The Nuvola has a front-mounted engine and four wheel drive.

The car is based on a separate tubular aluminium

Aluminium

Aluminium or aluminum is a silvery white member of the boron group of chemical elements. It has the symbol Al, and its atomic number is 13. It is not soluble in water under normal circumstances....

 frame with the body made of polyester

Polyester

Polyester is a category of polymers which contain the ester functional group in their main chain. Although there are many polyesters, the term "polyester" as a specific material most commonly refers to polyethylene terephthalate...

, designed to handle virtually any body style, from coupe to station wagon.

The prototype is currently on display at the Alfa Romeo History Museum

Alfa Romeo Museum

Alfa Romeo History Museum , which opened on December 18, 1976, is located in Arese, Milan, Italy. The museum is located in the now unused Alfa Romeo Arese factory area, which stopped manufacturing of cars in 2003 and engines in 2005, with the museum, left is only Alfa Romeo style centre.The whole...

 in Arese

Arese

Arese is a comune in the Province of Milan in the Italian region Lombardy, located about northwest of Milan. As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of 19,333 and an area of ....

, Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

.