Alfa Romeo SE 048SP

The Alfa Romeo SE 048SP, as it appeared at the 2010 Goodwood Festival of Speed.

In 1990, the Group C regulations underwent a major revamp, with the primary focus being on changing the engines to 3.5-litre units sourced from Formula One cars.[1] The Fiat Group had previously run the Lancia LC2 in the Group C category, but had cancelled that project in 1986 after only winning one race with the LC2.[2] In 1990, Lancia were primarily focusing on the World Rally Championship (with the Group A Delta Integrale), whilst Ferrari were focusing on their Formula One programme; this meant that Alfa Romeo were the only member of the Fiat Group that would have the capacity for a sports car racing programme; they had last competed in top-level sports car events in the 1970s, with the Alfa Romeo Tipo 33.[1] As Abarth had previously developed the Lancia LC2, it was them who Fiat turned to for the chassis development of the new Group C car,[1] which was assigned the project code of "SE 048SP".[3] Giuseppe Petrotta, formerly of Osella, was the man selected to design the SE 048SP,[4] and he drew up a fairly conventional car, with radiators mounted in the front of the chassis, covered rear wheels, and a nose that featured the traditional Alfa Romeo grille.[1]

The project itself was a well-kept secret, and very little was ever revealed about the car's specifications.[1] One thing that Alfa Romeo did reveal was that it used the 3.5-litre Tipo 1035 V10 engine from the still-born Alfa Romeo 164 Procar; this was a naturally aspirated 72 degree V10 originally designed for the Ligier Formula One team, and produced a claimed output of 620 hp (462 kW; 629 PS) at 13,300 RPM.[5] It is believed that the car was built in 1990, as it had a much simpler rear wing than those found on cars built for the 1991 World Sportscar Championship season, but no official build date was given.[1] MOMO's founder Gianpiero Moretti had apparently been in talks with Alfa Romeo about using the SE 048SP, but these did not result in any deal being made.[1] As a result, although at least one SE 048SP was built, the car never left the development phase, and never raced.[1] It ended up in Alfa Romeo's Museo Storico, but made a public appearance at the 2010 Goodwood Festival of Speed, where it appeared to be fitted with a 3.5-litre Ferrari V12 engine,[1] producing a claimed output of 680 hp (507 kW; 689 PS) at 12,750 RPM.[6] This may have been because the V10 engine had proved fragile in the "Abarth SE047", which was a re-engined Lancia LC2 used as a test-bed for the SE 048SP project.[7] The budget that the SE 048SP would have used, in combination with the money used in Lancia's WRC programme, were used instead on the Alfa Romeo 155 touring car programme,[7] which saw Alfa Romeo win numerous national championships, most notably the Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft in 1993,[8] and the British Touring Car Championship in 1994.[9]