There’s no denying that the Fiat 500 is one of the more favourable runaround cars on the market but, as with most superminis, it is not something that was built for speed. That is, unless you decide to modify it to create, say, a Lamborghini-Fiat 500 crossover.
Certainly that is what one Italian mechanic, Dini Gianfranco, thought when he decided to put a 6.2L V12 Lamborghini Murcielago engine into a Fiat 500.
The Lamborghini-Fiat 500 crossover can reach a top speed of 186 mph and has 580 horsepower behind it. That is seven times the original top speed of the supermini and thirty-two times its usual power.
Mr Gianfranco, who is now 56, has worked on cars since he was nine years old. As well a creating this hybrid, which is not for sale but is on display in his showroom, he has also crossed Fiat 500s with components from Ferrari and Porsche.
According to the Daily Mail, his interest in transforming the Italian supermini began during his teen years when he installed an Autobianchi A112 engine complete with a five-speed gearbox.
His hybrids got more adventurous when his teenage son, Leonardo, joked about combining a Fiat 500 with a Porsche engine after he had visited the 2006 Bologna Motor Show.
Following this suggestion, Mr Gianfranco got hold of a Fiat 500 and a motor and gearbox from a Porsche Carrera 3.2L. Over the course of 2007, he worked to make the Fiat 500-Porsche Carrera fusion a reality.
Once Mr Gianfranco and his team had succeeded in creating the crossover, their next challenge was to build a Fiat 500-Ferrari hybrid. They set about combining the car with a Ferrari v8 3.0L engine and finally finished it in December 2009.
After they had completed this car, the next challenge was the Lamborghini engine. Mr Gianfranco began working on this in January 2010 and finally finished it in December 2012, having spent approximately 3,000 hours on the hybrid.
Images: Hot Spot Media via The Daily Mail
For more articles like this, receive our weekly e-newsletter, including partner deals and all things motoring, register your email below.
Please note: You cannot subscribe to Smart-Motoring unless you put a tick in the checkbox below to indicate have read and agreed to our privacy policy.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.