Alfa Romeo Built A Spaceship Before We Ever Went Into Space

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Okay, it's not technically a spaceship, but it sure looks like what I wish spaceships looked like. It's actually very much a machine designed for use in an atmosphere, since this 1914 Castagna A.L.F.A. 40/60 HP Aerodinamica is the first real example of an aerodynamic passenger car.

There were streamlining attempts before this Alfa, going as far back as an 1865 patent application for an "air-resisting train", but for cars streamlining had previously been only attempted for racing cars.

That is until the delicious-sounding Count Marco Ricotti had the Castagna coachbuilding firm apply some early aerodynamic understanding to an A.L.F.A. (later known as Alfa-Romeo) 40/60 HP chassis. The 40/60 HP name is pretty confusing, as the six-liter inline-four actually made 70 HP.

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The one-off prototype looks like a steampunk's wet dream made real, even if it ended up being so heavy that it offered no performance improvement over the normal-bodied model. What makes it especially charming are the details– the original clunky lighting equipment, the Rumpler-like fenders, the weird rear-mounted dual horns, and, best of all, the "tunnel" at the front to get air to the radiator.

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In fact, the entire engine (including the radiator) is inside the passenger compartment. This could mean for comfortable, out-of-the-weather servicing — or, in the pretty-common-for-1914 event of overheating — an instant sauna as the radiator rapidly fills the cockpit with scalding steam.

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Also helping make for even more exciting motoring is the lack of a rear window or rear-view mirrors. In this car, why would you be looking back, anyway?