Il Tempo Gigante

In accordance to the holidays, i introduce a piece of Norwegian history.

This is Il Tempo Gigante from the Norwegian stop motion movie Flåklypa Gran Prix made in 1975 that is still shown on Norwegian television on December 25th every single year.

According to the movie, Il Tempo Gigante is a four wheel drive straight 12 with electronic fuel injection directly to the fuel nozzels running on pure alcohol (that is how it’s described in the actual movie). In addition to a rear-mounted jet engine for good measure. A true beast of a car. Especially for the age it was designed.

In 1976, a year after the movie was launched, a full scale, working and running model of Il Tempo Gigante was produced. It’s displayed in Ivo Caprino’s studio in Norway.
The actual car is based off the chassis from a Cadillac ambulance and is powered by a 5 litre Chevrolet v8 putting down a respectable 550bhp. Although weighing in at over 2500kg, it’s not quite the rocketship it was made out to be in the movie. The top speed was never tested, due to a lack of equipment during the test run in 1976. The speedometers however go all the way to 400km/h. And no, that’s not a typo.

It was also featured on the Norwegian car show Broom in 2002.