Monegasca MCA

[bschenker]

The video
Blogsport - ALA 50, bolide principesco

[faksta]

What I like about this car is a Gr.C influence in its design.

[bschenker]

The design is from Fulvio Balabbio. The want go to Les Mans with Monaco drivers in 2010. For next year is possibly to have a pubblic road car.
Link to Bellasi at Novara Italy (problem with Firefox)
BELLASI -TECNOLOGIE DA COMPETIZIONE

[faksta]

I've checked the official Mega site, and have to say I was wrong saying that MCA was remained. It was bought in 1996 by Aixam-Mega.
Historique des utilitaires sans permis Mega
Scroll down to year 1996.

[bschenker]

I can only say, somethings is wrong, luck the renewed officiel site. About this it's still the same company with the same owners and directors.

[Wouter Melissen]

Does anybody have a direct link to the content on the official site? I am just getting a flash video with pictures of people, but no info on the car or the company.

[bschenker]

This is the the officiell site, the old one was changed on the sunday after the presentation of the Ala 50

I think Bellasi can help you.

info-at-bellasi.com
info-at-technocarbonparts.com

Try also
info-at-montecarloautomobile.com

.

[Wouter Melissen]

Thanks. You should not post e-mail addresses like that in a public forum though. I edited them so the spam bots will not pick them up.

I have just added this to the main page: 1990 - 1992 MCA Centenaire - Images, Specifications and Information

I hope it's accurate.

[faksta]

Áûë, òîëüêî ÌÈÃ...
I've found a great story about MCA's and MIG's cars and their further development. I'll translate it later (tomorrow), but according to it the blue car is believed to be an MCA Beau Rivage (aka MCA GTB), not Centenaire. Thus, MCA have made two models - Centenaire (coupe) and GTB/Beau Rivage with removable top.

Also, MIG Tako entered not only '93 Le Mans, but also some other races, and achieved its best result at 1993 Vallelunga 6-hour race. Also there is some unchecked info saying that they've issued some number of road legal cars.

May be not completely true info though, as they write that the first Centenaire prototype was made just in 1991...

BTW, MIG Tako is on 46th place in a list of 50 World's greatest sportscars
The World's Greatest Sportscars

[faksta]

Here. Not a direct translation, but very close. Also I didn't cover the period after the acquisition by Aixam-Mega.

In the beginning of 1991 Fulvio Ballabio, a race driver from Monaco, who acted on European level for about 10 years and spent 2 seasons in Formula-2, decided to create his own supercar make. Fulvio found some investors and attracted his elder brother – businessman, Giuseppe. His first car, Centenaire, was called so because of ACM’ 100 years celebrated that year. In the beginning even prince Albert supported the project.
The car had to be impressive: carbon monocoque and body, fantastic dynamic specs, half-a-million price, completely hand-made, limited parties of 12 cars per year… They even wanted to produce their own engine. Ballabio brothers bought the rights for racing V12 and boxers from Carlo Chiti and his Motori Moderni company – outstanding F1 units, which no one yet could adjust for road cars use. They also promised to present a whole gamma of super engines and to sell them to leading supercar builders, including Mercedes-Benz and Porsche. There were also some rumours about participation in F-1 championship with own team.
Practically only one bad looking and unfinished Centenaire prototype was made, equipped with an old V12 taken from Fulvio’s own Lamborghini Countach (455hp @ 7000rpm and planned speed about 300km/h). Styling was just an unsuccessful copy of Gandini’s Diablo. Later, though, another version was built with a removable top called Beau Rivage, or GTB (1992) – in honor of the famous hotel in Monte Carlo. Strange, but these cars found their customers – two rich guys from Monaco. But MCA’s own engines were never applied to their cars and weren’t even tested. Monte Carlo was slowly dying…
But 1993 saw a sensation – famous Le Mans race was attended by Georgian MIG Tako M100 – Motori Moderni, which was actually just a bit modernized MCA Beau Rivage with a coupe body. Because of its economical inconsistency, MCA lost royal family’s support, but found a new sponsor – the successor of Georgian princes, Alexander Mingrelia, who lived in Monaco all his life. Now the ‘new’ car and the team were called MIG (Mingrelia and Georgia). The patron himself, a gentleman driver, was also a member of the racing team together with Fulvio Ballabio. But the equipage, consisted also from Pierre Honegger, Giampiero Consonni and Philippe Renault, didn’t pass to the start. The car was so unready that even among such a low level of entrants (that year Le Mans lost sports prototypes) MIG showed awful time and was not allowed to race.
To be absolutely honest, the official presentation of MIG Tako took place not in Le Mans, but in Monaco in May. Then there was absolutely no difference between MIG and MCA, except for the different badges, but Pierre Honegger, who was responsible for the project, promised that the Le Mans version would pass a necessary preparation process involving Carlo Chiti himself.
The car presented in June was remade, indeed. The new aerodynamic package, speaking about the exterior. But, despite all Chiti’s and Consonni’s efforts, problems with crude chassis and a new 3,5-liter turbocharged Motori Moderni engine, which stood for previous V12 from Lamborghini, didn’t let MIG even pass the qualification. Consonni showed just 50th time, 1 minute 9 seconds behind Ferrari and Porsche at 48th and 49th accordingly. And only press’ jokes woke up the interest to the car.
After such a hard day MIG tried to enter another events and showed its best results at 1993 6 hours of Vallelunga, which weren’t so good either.
After this Ballabio signed a contract with some military factory in Tbilisi (in the times of USSR they produced some parts for MIG planes). The newly created Georgia Automotive Mig Tako company had to accept the production of MIG supercars and, besides, to produce carbon monocoques. In the future they wanted to supply an automotive world with cheap carbon parts and to provide them even for F-1 teams.
Some say that several cars were produced in Tbilisi…
Two years later Ballabio was happy to find a customer for all that remained from his company – George Blain, owner of Aixam-Mega company.