Alfa Romeo Disco Volante (C52)
The Alfa Romeo 1900 C52 “Disco Volante” — flying saucer — was produced in 1952 and 1953 in collaboration between Alfa Romeo’s engineering department and Touring Superleggera, the Milanese coachbuilder that had developed the Superleggera lightweight construction method. The name described exactly what the car looked like: a lenticular disc. Viewed from the front, its cross-section was an oval. Viewed from the side, it was an oval. The underbody was fully faired in to present a clean surface to the airstream. The coachwork briefing given to Touring Superleggera specified a shape “insensitive to wind” — and Touring’s solution, registered as a design patent, was unlike anything previously seen on a motor racing car.
The car was the work of Gioacchino Colombo — the same engineer who had designed the engine of the 159 Alfetta Grand Prix cars in 1937, who had then designed the Ferrari Colombo V12 at Maranello from 1946 to 1948, and who had subsequently returned to Alfa Romeo. That one man designed the most dominant Formula One car of the early post-war era, the defining Ferrari engine architecture, and this singular aerodynamic sports racing car in the space of fifteen years speaks to Colombo’s extraordinary range.
Three spiders were built in 1952, powered by a 2.0-litre all-alloy four-cylinder engine producing 158 hp — the same basic unit as the Alfa Romeo 1900 road car, but tuned for competition. The Superleggera construction — a cage of small-diameter steel tubes with thin aluminium body panels — produced an extremely light body; combined with the aerodynamic lenticular form, the Disco Volante was genuinely fast for its engine capacity. The first test session was held on 11 June 1952 at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza, driven by Alfa Romeo’s works test driver and racing driver Consalvo Sanesi. In 1953, one of the spiders was converted to a coupé with an enclosed body, and two further cars were built fitted with the larger 3.5-litre straight-six from the Alfa Romeo 6C 3000 CM racing car — giving these variants approximately 230 hp.
Five cars were built in total. Four survive today. The C52 spiders were entered in competition during the 1952 and 1953 seasons, winning two races and demonstrating genuine speed before the programme was retired — the car’s aerodynamic innovation never translated into a sustained campaign, and the project was wound down without fulfilling its full potential. The United States importer Max Hoffman urged Alfa Romeo to produce a small series for sale, but the project never moved beyond the five experimental cars. What did move, according to a persuasive tradition among automotive historians, was the Disco Volante’s design: the streamlined, faired body, the curvature of the rear flanks, and the covered rear wheels are seen as direct influences on the Jaguar D-Type (1954–1957) and Jaguar E-Type (1961–1974) — two of the most celebrated British sports and racing cars of the post-war era.
In 2012, the revived Touring Superleggera presented a modern interpretation — a new Disco Volante concept on the Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione chassis — at the Geneva Motor Show. Limited small-series production followed. Alfa Romeo also chose the original C52’s form as the subject of a bronze sculpture to mark the company’s centenary, now displayed in Milan.
Connections
- Gioacchino Colombo — designed the C52’s engineering; same person who designed the 158 Alfetta engine and Ferrari Colombo V12, source: museoalfaromeo.com
- Touring Superleggera — built all five C52 bodies using Superleggera construction; body form registered as design patent, source: wikipedia.org
- Alfa Romeo — manufacturer; the C52 was developed in Alfa’s own engineering department, source: wikipedia.org
- Alfa Romeo 158 — Colombo designed both the 158’s engine (1937) and the C52’s engineering (1952), source: wikipedia.org