What exactly was it like with the Monte Carlo GTB?
06/06/2019
If proof were needed that super sports cars always appear and disappear, only to be forgotten a few years later, then the Monte Carlo GTB could be an example of this.
In April 1992, the American magazine Road & Track reported on the super sports car which, with an unladen weight of just under 1000 kg and 720 hp from the mid-engine, was to set new standards in terms of power-to-weight ratio. However, the sports car was not entirely new in April 1992; it had already been seen in a similar form as the Centenaire, initiated by IMSA and CART driver Fulvio Ballabio. This sports car with Lamborghini V12 engine technology should have cost buyers USD 500,000, but it was not a success.
A new start was made with the new name Monte Carlo GTB. Carlo Chiti developed a new V12 engine with two turbochargers and 720 hp, which weighed significantly less than the Lamborghini version. Sunk into a lightweight monocoque and clad with a carbon fiber body, this resulted in a kerb weight of just under one ton. Wide tires, a thoroughly pleasing body line and the expected sports car interior completed the package, which in turn was offered for around half a million USD.
Despite traveling to Monaco, Road & Track was unable to test drive the car, although Chiti was able to prove that the engine was already running (with laptop support).
A year later, a businessman from Georgia apparently tried to succeed at Le Mans in the Monte Carlo GTB, but the sports car, then called the MIG M100, did not even manage to qualify.
Méga bought the project and presented another version in Geneva in 1996, which now had a Mercedes-Benz V12 engine installed behind the driver's cab.
It is not entirely clear how many cars were built in total, but it is unlikely to have been more than a dozen; fewer are very likely. The company was certainly not a financial success.
But hope dies last! Gordon Murray, once a successful designer at Brabham and the creator of one of the best sports cars of all time with the McLaren F1, wants to try again. His T.50 is set to rewrite the rules of sports car design. It is almost as heavy as the Monte Carlo GTB (980 kg) and also has a V12 in front of the rear axle, but without a turbocharger and 650 hp (at 12,100 rpm!).
Driveability and driving pleasure should be the top priority; best times for 0-100 km/h sprints or top speeds in excess of 400 km/h are not the aim of the project.
Murray wants to sell 100 cars, which are to be given additional downforce with a horizontal blower similar to the vacuum cleaner Formula 1 Brabham, for just over £2 million from 2022. We shall see. So far there is little more than a sketch.
