MCA GTB Centenaire: The supercar of Montecarlo
At the beginning of the 90s the first supercar was born in the principality of Monaco
It was 1983 when the Italian entrepreneur Fulvio Maria Ballabio founded the first automobile company in the small Principality of Monaco. Called Monte Carlo Automobile, the company immediately began developing a supercar that was supposed to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Automobile Club de Monaco in 1890. The car, which was called GTB Centenaire, was designed by Italian engineers Guglielmo Bellasi and Carlo Chiti and was based on a monocoque frame in carbon fiber and Kevlar with a honeycomb structure.
A Lamborghini V12 5.0 was installed as the engine, managed by a five-speed manual gearbox and combined with rear-wheel drive. The propulsion unit was derived from the one used on the Lamborghini Countach 25th Anniversary to which two turbochargers were added to increase the power up to 720 hp, allowing the Centenaire to reach the maximum speed of 350 km/h. Thanks to this increase in power, the GTB became the most powerful supercar on the market and it was until 1993 when the Dauer 962 was presented.
The braking system consisted of four self-ventilated disc brakes while the suspensions adopted a low quadrilateral push-rod type with anti-roll bar. Presented to Prince Rainier III of Monaco in 1990, the GTB was supposed to be produced in 100 copies but in the end the production was limited to 5 models due to the poor requests received from customers. Although the GTB was one of the most technologically advanced cars of its time, the development and production costs raised the final price considerably and this sent many potential customers away.
The company was later purchased by Mega which completely redesigned Centenaire making it less performing.
TRIBUTE TO THE CENTENAIRE
VERDICT
Thank you to Valentina Zanola and Alessandro Renesis for the cooperation
Join In
Comments (0)