italiaspeed.com: 2007 TARGA TASMANIA

A very rare and almost forgotten Australian sportscar with strong Italian links bounced right back into the limelight last week when Adam and David Kaplan set the fastest time in the Targa Tasmania Shannons Class Prologue, held in George Town, the pair driving the unusual Giocattolo Group B.

The 210kW mid-engined V8 Australian-built Giocattolo (which means ‘toy’ in Italian) uses an Alfa Romeo Sprint body shell, and it upstaged its much more favoured Australian muscle car and Porsche rivals to set a fastest time of 3min.21.21sec over the 4.82km course. This meant that the New South Wales crew not only raced to the quickest time in the classic category, but they posted the 11th fastest overall time of the day, a feat that includes all drivetravel.com Modern category competitors. In the Shannons Classic category, where the car competes, even a crowd-pleasing performance by flamboyant Victorians Steve and Rachael Coad in their 400kW Holden Monaro GTS was not enough to overcome the Giocattolo’s agility on the tight suburban street course, and they had to settle for second fastest in Classic on 3min.21.84sec.

The Giocattolo has almost vanished in the two decades since a handful were built in Australia, although in recent years an example has become a regular fixture on the Targa Tasmania. The story of this car begins in 1986, when sports car enthusiast and previous owner of the Toy Shop performance car dealership, Paul Halstead and F1 car designer - Barry Lock, teamed together to build a sports car. A car of speed and handling, yet beautiful looks which rivalled names like Porsche and Ferrari - this was the objective. The start was to redesign an Alfa Romeo Sprint and insert a mid-mounted Alfa V6 engine. The Alfa engine then became hard and expensive to import and put in the cars, so they went looking for a new engine.

The option they found was the Holden 5.0L Walkinshaw Group A V8 engine. After redesigning the mid engine bay and moving the barrier behind the front seats forward an inch they were able to make it fit. With more 'mumbo' than the Alfa V6 and a much cheaper price tag they decided that the Holden engine was right for what was to become one of Australia's top super cars. After upgrading the engine and fabricating some parts themselves they were happy with the performance output and so the 'Group B' tag was given to the car.

Of the 15 cars made all ended up with V8 engines, including the Alfa V6 prototype which was nearly written off by a Police 4WD. It was then rebuilt and became production car 001. The body panels were re-done with Kevlar body panels, then came the Brembo brakes and F1 type Suspension components. The right package at the wrong time was how it panned out for Lock and Halstead, when the company closed in 1989.

The Giocattolo Group B sports car utilised a Holden 5.0L Walkinshaw Group A V8 engine which was fitted mid-engine in a Alfa Romeo Sprint body shell.

The New South Wales crew not only raced to the fastest time in the classic category of the Prologue, but they posted the 11th fastest time of the day, a feat that includes all drivetravel.com Modern competitors.