At the Geneva Palexpo the Mefistofele is being showcased alongside the Fiat 500 TwinAir, cars that are nearly a century apart, but also worlds apart, the 900cc 500 TwinAir has an engine almost 21 litres smaller than the Mefistofele and while the historic land speed record car emits around 3,200 g/km of CO2, the TwinAir puffs out just 95 g/km.

The story of this racing car is quite simply amazing. The Mefistofele – so called due to the bangs and puffs of smoke that it emitted when beating the world speed record – is based on the chassis of a 1908 Fiat SB4 Corsa racer, no mean machine itself as it boasted an 18-litre engine which was made up of two interconnected units. Legend has it that the car's owner in 1922, by which time the machine was well worn and at the end of its racing life, John Duff, suffered one of the most spectacular engine failures ever seen at Brooklands with chucks of the cylinder block as well as the bonnet and other sundry parts all heading in different directions.

With Duff then turning his hand to racing Bentleys, into the story comes one Sir Ernest Arthur Douglas Eldridge, a colourful character of some eccentricity as befitting the period; he bought the shattered car. Eldridge, who was born into a wealthy London family, came to the conclusion that the 'standard' engine at 18 litres was somewhat too small, no surprise as he had already shocked spectators at Brooklands by turning up with a 1907 Isotta-Fraschini with a stretched chassis fitted with a 20.5-litre Maybach unit. Eldridge had already raced a 10-litre Fiat with much success. In his pursuit of more power Eldridge laid his hands on a 21.706 litre six-cylinder Fiat A-12 "Bis" engine which had 260 HP and was used in aircraft including airships and bombers.

To fit this monster of an engine into the car he had to lengthen the chassis, and as legend has it he used parts scavenged from a "London Bus" to create his "long wheelbase" monster. The engine was still chain driven but four carburettors and four distributors were added in place of the two original Magneti Marelli magnetos as power was boosted to 320 HP at 1,800 rpm. Stylish new aerodynamic bodywork was crafted, including a slippery tail section, and the whole machine weighed in at two tons.

In 1923 Eldridge rolled the Mefistofele out at Brooklands (an accomplished pilot Eldridge had already survived a plane crash at Brooklands) and broke the 1/2 mile standing start record posting world a time of 23.17 seconds (77.68 mph). It was the first step of a record breaking spree that would follow. The next year Eldridge and his team descended on Arpajon near Montlhéry in France along with the factory Delage team. Eldridge smashed the record but Delage quickly protested the Fiat due to it not being fitted with a mandatory reverse gear and then the French marque claimed the record. Eldridge headed to Paris and had the car fitted with a device that reputedly allowed it at least briefly to move in a rearward direction, and on 12 July 1924, the Mefistofele burned up the long beaten earth track at Arpajon at the extraordinary speed of 234.980 km/h (146.013 mph) to snatch the world record. Legend has it that Eldridge took the car to Paris and parked it over the road from Delage's flagship showroom where their own V12 record beater was being showcased. Records for 5 km and 10 km would follow as the Mefistofele thundered its way into the history books.