The Totem GTAmodificata Blends Classic Alfa Romeo Style With Modern Power

Restomods, it won’t have escaped your attention, are quite a big business these days. Some of them stay faithful to the original car, their enhancements subtle and period-faithful. Some of them… don’t. This is part of the second camp.

It’s the GTAmodificata, the latest creation from Italian outfit Totem Automobili. If you’re not familiar with Totem’s work, it gives fairly thorough overhauls to Alfa Romeo’s desperately pretty 105-series coupes from the 1960s. Previously, it’s produced both the 582bhp GTelectric, and a combustion equivalent, the GTsuper, powered by a 592bhp twin-turbo V6 built by Italian specialist Italtecnica.

Its latest work looks to the Giulia GTAm for inspiration – not the one from a couple of years ago, but the old one, a 105-series Giulia coupe built by Alfa’s competition partner, Autodelta, for racing use. The one with wildly blistered arches and a strenuous weight-loss programme.

The inspiration is clear to see in the GTAmodificata’s riveted arch flares and extra pair of driving lights mounted on the front bumper. The looks are where the similarities end, though.

Like the GTsuper, the GTAmodificata uses Italtecnica’s V6. However, it’s been enlarged from 2.8 to 3.2 litres and, with a host of other tweaks, power has been lifted to a mildly staggering 799bhp. That, for reference, is more than a great deal of the current crop of supercars – the Ferrari SF90 Stradale and McLaren 750S are both down on it, for instance. Torque is an equally impressive 538lb ft.

All that power’s sent solely to the rear wheels through a six-speed sequential gearbox. Thanks to a carbon body and monocoque, and aluminium front and rear chassis sections, it weighs in at just 1,095kg. What all that means is a fairly terrifying 730bhp per tonne, a 0-62mph time of 2.6 seconds and a top speed in excess of 186mph. All in something that, somewhere in its bones, still has bits of 1960s Alfa in it.

This should all make for a fairly lively driving experience. Totem plans to build just five GTAmodificatas as a send-off for its run of Giulia coupe-based cars, and they’ll apparently cost around £1 million each. It’ll require a lot of bravery to drop that sort of money on any car, but probably even more to get behind the wheel of one of these. Even if you are too scared to drive it though, paintings that are a lot less pretty than this car sell for a lot more. Every cloud, and all that.