Ten of the finest Alfa Romeo concepts

You know those weird beetles with the pearlescenty body? They're called "carabidaes", and that's what this iridescent V8-powered 230bhp concept's named after. Every day's a school day at TopGear.com.

The future! From yesterday! Today! This rather innovative thing was the first in a series of four concept cars built collaboratively by Bertone and Alfa Romeo. This one (BAT 5) was shown at the '53 Turin Auto show - that funny front end's designed to eliminate airflow disruption at high speeds.

It stands for Experimental Sportscar 3.0 litre and it was built by Zagato. It also made it into production pretty much unchanged as the thermoplastic-bodied SZ supercar.

Remember the Bat 5 from a few pictures ago? This one's the last of the Bertone-Alfa design bloodline. It's also very fast - there's 8C Competizione mechanicals under there.

Built as a joint birthday present to, umm, themselves, the 2uettottanta celebrates 100 years of Alfa and 80 years of Pininfarina. It's got a 1750cc engine, just like the 1750 Veloce from 1968. Nice.

This is another one that's based on the 33 Stradale, though it's a bit more... minging. Bertone designed it and rendered the wedgey shell in fibreglass before revealing it in '76 at the Geneva motor show.

Designed by Italdesign, it's mainly Alfa 164 underneath, though it's powered by a twin-turbo 3.0-litre V6 and there's a four-wheel drive system. You're saying it wrong, by the way - it's pronounced Shigeera.

This Bertone-penned 2.0-litre alloy-bodied sportster was tantalisingly close to production, though the Giulietta Sprint ended up taking its place.

No, this isn't a prescient tribute to KC and the Sunshine Band - "disco volante" actually means "flying saucer". Underneath its slick husk, there's a space frame chassis and hopped-up 1997cc engine from an Alfa 1900. It's good for 140mph, apparently.

FETCH THE DRIBBLE TRAY. This deeply, deeply stunning thing uses the 242bhp V8 you'd find in a 33 Stradale and the outline's inspired by the Ferrari P5 concept shown the year before at the 1968 Geneva motor show.