New Touring Arese RH95: Coachbuilt supercar driven in UK - Autocar

In the case of the Touring Superleggera Arese RH95, pulling the handle so marked is likely to bring on a tinge of regret rather than an otherwise doomed pilot’s gushing relief, because the opening of this car’s door signals journey’s end.

It’s a novel pleasure to find a slice of wit in the labelling of a car’s controls, although you can be assured that the Arese RH95 is a very serious machine indeed.

Before they do, you may well be wondering who Touring is and what its somewhat cumbersomely named Arese RH95 is, too.

Only if you’re of a certain (depressingly advanced) age or a keen follower of the Italian coachbuilt car industry will you know of Carrozzeria Touring Superleggera, an Italian coachbuilder that has enjoyed two lives.

The first began in 1926, when Carrozzeria Touring was founded by Felice Bianchi Anderloni.

It was not long before this Milanese coachbuilder was winning concours events with its designs, wealthy enthusiasts bringing Touring Alfa Romeos, Isotta Fraschinis, Lancias and BMWs to be clothed.

During those four decades, Carrozzeria Touring fashioned some especially beauteous cars, besides developing the Superleggera advanced lightweight body manufacturing technique.

What happened next you can discover in the separate story opposite, but the company was re-established in 2006 to produce bespoke, high-end, limited-run cars in the Touring visual tradition.

The Arese RH95 is just that, and the last in a series of 21st-century Touring triplets, following the 2016 Alfa Romeo Disco Volante and the 2020 Aero 3.

Like coachbuilders of the 20th century, Touring has to choose a car on which to base its work, bringing us to a slightly sticky issue.

The unrevealed ‘RH’ part-funded the Arese’s engineering development, and for that investment he not only gained oblique recognition but also helped determine the design direction of the project, as de Fabribeckers explains: “Our patron had in mind the sports cars of the ’50s and ’60s and in particular the Alfa 33 Stradale.” References to this especially beautiful 1967 eight-cylinder, mid-engine Alfa Romeo can be seen in the extended doors, with their glass roof panels, and the fact that when every moving panel is open, the car looks as spectacular as it does with them closed.

A further link is that Alfa built only 18 examples of the 33 Stradale, and it’s the same number that Touring is aiming for with this series.

That might seem a modest ambition, until it comes to the question of price, which Touring will not reveal, beyond saying that each car requires 5000 highly skilled man-hours to construct.

So has Touring Superleggera, which has sold well over 50 limited-edition cars, many of them for seven-figure sums.

The exquisite, exotic, exclusive Arese may sit far beyond the reach of almost all of us, but the fact that coachbuilt, limited-edition cars like this are once again being produced is surely to be celebrated.

New Touring Superleggera Arese RH95 packs 710bhp Ferrari V8