ALFA & OMEGA

Procar saloons with F1 performance were supposed to take motor sport by storm in the late 1980s. Instead, this unique Alfa Romeo 164 was the first and last of the breed, as Gary Watkins explains

- Gary Watkins

Riccardo Patrese hit the throttle on the exit of the Parabolica. Seconds later, just before jumping on the brakes for the Rettifilo chicane, he was well north of 200mph on Monza's start-finish straight. And he was driving a car that looked for all the world like a standard four-door saloon! The sound, a new one in motor racing, as he flew down the main straight at Monza in front of packed grandstands told a different story.

Patrese had jumped out of his V8 Judd-powered Formula 1 Williams after first qualifying on the Friday afternoon of the 1988 Italian Grand Prix and straight into a mount that wasn’t perhaps quite as different as it looked. The F1 race winner was driving the Alfa Romeo 164 Procar, a touring car of sorts, but one that beneath its lookalike bodywork was to all intents and purposes a two-seater F1 car: it was built around a V10 normally aspirated powerplant, a new configuration of race engine, but one that would become dominant at the pinnacle of the sport in the seasons to come.

Alfa’s Procar ended up as a one-off historical anomaly, but it could have heralded a new era in motor sport, at least if Bernie Ecclestone and Max Mosley had got their way. Yet by the time Patrese wowed the tifosi in Alfa Romeo’s backyard in a blur of colour - red, of course - plans for what was properly known as the FIA Production Car Championship were dead in the water.