Alfa Romeo P3 Tipo B No. 8 Tazio Nuvolari Winner Italian GP 1932 CMC 1:18

The Alfa Romeo P3 Tipo B occupies a singular place in Grand Prix history: designed by Vittorio Jano, it debuted in 1932 as the first true monoposto Grand Prix car Alfa Romeo ever built. This CMC 1:18 scale model car locks in one of the most celebrated drives of that debut season — Tazio Nuvolari's winning run at Monza on 5 June 1932 — in die-cast metal with photo-etched and turned metal detail parts. The Italian Racing Red livery is carried exactly as Scuderia Ferrari presented the works cars that year.

Vittorio Jano's Monoposto: Engineering the P3

The P3's 2,654 cc straight-eight used a twin-supercharger layout to produce approximately 215 bhp at around 5,400 rpm in 1932 specification. Its most distinctive engineering detail was the split propshaft arrangement that routed drive either side of the driver's seat to a rear transaxle — a solution that kept the seating position unusually low for the period. The P3 debuted and won at the 1932 Gran Premio d'Italia at Monza on 5 June 1932, and then went on to win the French Grand Prix at Reims in July 1932.

Race Number 8, Monza, 1932: Nuvolari and Scuderia Ferrari

By the summer of 1932 Scuderia Ferrari — still years away from building its own cars — operated the Alfa Romeo works entries. Tazio Nuvolari, already a figure of immense reputation in Italian motor sport, took race number 8 at the Gran Premio d'Italia on 5 June and won. The Italian Racing Red livery worn that day reflected the national racing colour that defined the sport's pre-war aesthetic. The P3 went on to be driven to victory by both Nuvolari and Rudolf Caracciola across the 1932 season, cementing Jano's design as the dominant Grand Prix car of its era.

CMC's 1:18 Die-Cast Craftsmanship

CMC (Classic Model Cars) builds its pre-war racing subjects in die-cast metal, supplemented by photo-etched detail parts and hand-assembled multi-part construction — an approach that places them well above mainstream die-cast production in terms of surface fidelity and component count. The supercharger plumbing, exposed exhaust stacks and cockpit structure of the P3 are precisely the areas where this methodology shows its advantage. The result is a 1:18 die-cast metal model that reads as a documentation of the car rather than a simplified representation.