Alfa Romeo Canguro is 60 years old: It crashed during testing, then shone at the exhibition

The elegant Alfa Romeo Canguro concept celebrates its 60th anniversary this year. It was one of the first cars with a glued-on windshield, but it ultimately did not make it into production due to the demanding production of the bodies.

In 1964, the then revolutionary Škoda 1000 MB went on sale in Czechoslovakia, which was the first model with an “everything in the back” concept and a modern self-supporting body. In America, the now legendary Ford Mustang was introduced to the world, and in Germany the first production Wankel engines with a rotary piston began to be produced. In Italy, the twelve-cylinder Ferrari 275 GTB began to be created, and Alfa Romeo introduced one of the most beautiful concepts of all time.

The elegant novelty was officially shown to the world for the first time at the Paris Motor Show 1964 and was technically innovative. The sports coupe was based on the chassis of the charming Alfa Romeo Giulia TZ, which was a successful sports car in car races, and the Milanese automaker prepared a competition for the Italian design studios. It supplied one TZ chassis each to the famous coachbuilders Pininfarina and Bertone and challenged them to give it their all.

The winner was Giorgetto Giugiaro from the Bertone studio, a successful car designer working with car companies from all over the world. Alfa Romeo’s new design study was officially called Canguro, which can be translated from Italian as “kangaroo”. The new prototype was made of laminate, replacing the more traditional aluminum, and was one of the first cars with a glued-on windshield.

Alfa Romeo Canguro was really liked by the public, but the Italian carmaker finally decided to abandon it. One of the main reasons was insufficient body production capacity. The only produced car subsequently also underwent driving tests, but on the circuit in Monza it collided with a year-old Chevrolet Tetsudo concept, another four-wheeled creation by Bertone.

Nuccio Bertone decided that the damage to the car was too great and not worth repairing, so it was parked near the factory and waited for his next chance. It was later completely restored and in 2005 it won the prestigious “Best of Show” award at the veteran Villa d’Este Concours d’Elegance on the shores of Italy’s Lake Como.

Also thanks to fiberglass, the Alfa Romeo Canguro was an extremely light sports car – the curb weight including operating fluids was only 650 kilograms. The heart of the car was a longitudinally mounted atmospheric 1.6-liter in-line four-cylinder engine with a maximum output of 84 kW (114 hp), a DOHC valve train, a five-speed manual transmission and rear-wheel drive.