Pagani Huayra Lampo Pays Homage To Turbine Propelled Fiat

Two Italian companies have come together to pay their respects to a very important part of Italian car-making history - the 1954 Fiat Turbina turbine-powered prototype. The Pagani Huayra Lampo has been co-created by Pagani and Garage Italia Customs and renders the beautiful supercar in the classic racing livery that adorned the Turbina when it was revealed at the Turin Motor Show in April 1954.

The red and white livery with simple flowing lines adds to the graceful lines of the Huayra.

Also Read: A beautifully bonkers Pagani - the Zonda HP Barchetta

Lampo is Italian for ‘lightning’ and there are a lot of lightning motifs around the car to point that fact out. 

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The lightning symbol can be seen on the front and rear air intake/exhaust grilles.

While tri coloured lightning bolts proudly show off the car’s Italian heritage and can be found on the petal-shaped mirror housings,

..the side-skirts near the rear wheels,

...and on the brake callipers!

The tricolour bands on the haunches of the Pagani Huayra Lampo also hark back to the Turbina, which had much wider bands on its two rear vertical stabilisers.

Fiat used a gold paint to stamp its name on the Turbina and Pagani has used the same to highlight aluminium bits around the car, and most noticeably on its monoblock alloy wheels.

Inside, the Pagani Huayra Lampo features brown-and-cream leather with contrast golden aluminium trim on the dashboard.

The hand-braided leather is also used in a chequered design to form the beautiful seat covers seen here. 

No mechanical changes have been made to the Pagani Huayra Lampo’s engine, those expecting some sort of tribute to the turbine in the Fiat Turbina will be disappointed. Powering the Huayra Lampo is the same 6.0-litre, twin-turbocharged Mercedes-AMG V12 petrol engine developing 730PS of maximum power. 

Also Read: The most extreme Huayra is still beautiful

Pagani does seem to have added some aero parts from the mad track focussed Huayra BC to the Lampo, including the larger air intakes at the front and the large front splitter for better handling.

The Fiat Turbina: A Very Short History

The mid-1900s saw many major car companies trying hard to find alternatives to the piston engine. One of the most thoroughly researched alternatives was the turbine engine. Its advantages included the ability to run on a variety of fuels, increased reliability, lower weight and smaller size because of lesser moving parts, smooth operation and the cool quotient attributed to such engines because of their connection with aeroplanes. 

The 1954 Fiat Turbina was a wild concept car that came into being as the result of this endeavour. It took a special task force of engineers at Fiat six years, from 1948 to 1954, to transform an idea into this futuristic aeroplane-like car. Fiat claimed that the Turbina’s gas-turbine engine developed a maximum power of 299PS at a mind-boggling 22,000rpm. Couple this with an aerodynamic body which held on to the record of having the lowest drag coefficient of 0.14 for 30 years and a low unladen weight of just over a tonne, the Turbina could hit a claimed top speed of 250kmph. 

Sadly, the turbine-engined car dream ended as soon as it had emerged. The piston engine had advanced to a point where it made more sense to commercially produce it, even though it was not as efficient in terms of power-to-weight ratio. The turbine engine was too loud, drank more fuel in general and required a lot more engineering (and hence money) to contain its heating issues. The turbine powered car may be a thing of the past, but its legacy continues to inspire and amazes us even today.

Also Read: It may not be powered by a turbine but the Fiat Abarth Punto goes like a rocket!

Photos of the 1954 Fiat Turbina courtesy dbizzle_ on Flickr