Totem Automobili Review: The Italian Restomod House Reviving the Alfa Romeo Giulia GT for the Electric Age

Ask most people to name a boutique Alfa Romeo restomod house and they’ll say Alfaholics, if they say anything at all. But there’s a newer name that deserves the same attention: Totem Automobili. Founded by a designer who used to sketch cars for Alfa Romeo itself, Totem takes the 1963 Giulia GT — one of the most beautifully proportioned coupes Italy ever produced — and rebuilds it from a carbon-fiber monocoque up, with a choice of twin-turbo V6 power or a full electric drivetrain.

What makes Totem different from the wave of restomod houses chasing horsepower records isn’t just the numbers, though 798 hp from a 165 kg V6 is hard to ignore. It’s that the founder is also the designer, and the whole project reads like a design studio that happens to build running cars rather than an engineering shop that happens to hire a stylist.

I’ve spent time going through their model range, their engineering partners, and how they stack up against the other Alfa restomod name people already know. Here’s my full breakdown of what Totem Automobili builds in 2026, why the story behind it matters, and where it sits against the competition.

The Story Behind Totem Automobili

Riccardo Quaggio founded Totem Automobili in 2018, and his background is the whole point of the company. He worked as a designer inside Alfa Romeo before striking out on his own, which means the person drawing these cars actually understands the constraints of the original Giulia GT platform rather than reverse-engineering them from photographs.

Quaggio’s stated philosophy is disarmingly simple: “keep it simple.” He talks about Italian design as shapes that “must satisfy the eyes,” and about keeping the driver at the center of the experience rather than burying them in screens and drive modes. It’s a deliberately old-fashioned way to talk about a car company in 2026, and it shows in the finished product — the silhouette of every Totem model is still unmistakably the 1963 Giulia GT, just executed in carbon fiber instead of steel.

The company is based in Marcon, near Venice, and the scale of the operation is bigger than the “boutique” label suggests: 21 mechanical and electrical engineers, 9 craftsmen, and more than 150 suppliers working across the build. That’s a serious amount of engineering headcount for a company most people have never heard of.

What Totem Automobili Actually Builds

Every Totem starts life as a Alfa Romeo Giulia GT from the 105-series, built between the 1960s and early 1970s. The donor car is stripped down to essentially nothing, and what comes back is a carbon-fiber monocoque chassis with aluminum front and rear subframes, married to a body that preserves the original’s three-line silhouette while being entirely new underneath.

Four distinct variants exist as of 2026, ranging from a fully electric grand tourer to a five-car flagship with nearly 800 horsepower.

GT Electric — The Zero-Emissions Grand Tourer

The GT Electric is Totem’s answer to the question of what a restomod looks like without an engine at all. It makes 590 hp and 663 lb-ft of torque from an 81 kWh battery pack, is good for 250 to 300 miles of range, and gets to 62 mph in just over three seconds. Total weight sits around 1,490 kg — heavier than the combustion cars, which is the usual trade-off with battery-electric restomods.

Top Gear drove it and came away split: the design work drew genuine praise, but the reviewer found the driving experience “cosmetically glorious, dynamically basic,” citing nervous damping and a traction control system that needed more development. That’s a fair criticism of a first-generation EV restomod, and it’s worth knowing going in if the electric version is the one you’re considering. Pricing starts around £445,000.

GT Super — The Volume Model

The GT Super is the twin-turbo V6 heart of the lineup and the closest thing Totem has to a “standard” product, limited to 40 examples. Power is officially rated at 640 hp from a 2.8-liter twin-turbo V6 codenamed “Gloria,” developed with Italtecnica Engineering and weighing less than 180 kg. Some commissioned examples — like the “Litorale Brado” build finished in Big Sur Green with a hand-carved wood steering wheel — have been specified with the upgraded 739 hp state of tune.

0-100 km/h comes up in 3.2 seconds, the whole car weighs 1,180 kg dry, and it rides on a genuine double-wishbone setup at both ends with ORAM dampers rather than an off-the-shelf coilover kit. Pricing starts at roughly €539,000 before any personalization, and given the car is a commission, personalization is very much the point — Totem will build a bespoke wooden steering wheel for you if that’s what you want, which says a lot about how far outside a normal manufacturer’s playbook this operation sits.

GT Super SP “Sport Prototipo” — The Track-Focused Flagship Twin

Limited to just 10 cars, the GT Super SP pushes the same 3.2-liter twin-turbo V6 to 740 hp and wraps it in a visibly wider body — over five inches broader at the arches than the standard GT Super — with a bigger rear diffuser, dual lateral Capristo exhaust exits, and extra venting on the hood and front fenders. The first example, nicknamed “Rocket,” debuted at Monterey Car Week in August 2025. This is the version built for buyers who want the GT Super’s engineering but with visibly more aggression and a genuine claim to track use.

GTAmodificata — The Five-Car Halo

At the top sits the GTAmodificata, limited to just five cars and priced around €1.1 million. It uses a bespoke 3.2-liter twin-turbo V6 that weighs a claimed 165 kg and produces 798 hp and 538 lb-ft of torque — numbers that put it in genuine hypercar territory despite riding on a chassis that started life as a 1960s coupe. It gets a sequential transmission, a limited-slip differential, a titanium exhaust, and carbon-shell seats with Sabelt harnesses. This is Totem’s statement piece, built for the handful of collectors who want the absolute technical ceiling of what the platform can do.

Program Specifications at a Glance

Engineering Details Worth Knowing

The headline numbers are one thing. How Totem actually gets there is more interesting, and it’s where the company separates itself from restomod houses that are really just very good body shops.

The Italtecnica Partnership

Totem’s V6 engines aren’t sourced off a shelf or lightly massaged donor units — they’re developed in partnership with Italtecnica Engineering, an Italian motorsport engine specialist. The result is an engine that weighs less than 180 kg in GT Super spec while producing 640-plus hp, a power-to-weight figure for the engine alone that most mainstream manufacturers can’t touch.

Carbon Fiber Monocoque Construction

Every Totem model rides on a carbon-fiber monocoque with aluminum front and rear subframes, not a reinforced version of the original steel unibody. This is a fundamentally different (and more expensive) engineering approach than most restomods, which typically stiffen and reinforce the donor car’s original structure. Building a new composite tub lets Totem hit the sub-1,200 kg curb weights that make the power figures translate into genuine performance rather than just spec-sheet bragging rights.

Suspension and Brakes

Front and rear suspension uses Totem’s own billet aluminum double-wishbone design with ORAM dampers — motorsport-grade hardware, not adapted road-car parts. Braking is handled by Brembo, with 6-piston monobloc calipers and 355mm cross-drilled, internally vented discs up front and 4-piston calipers with 345mm discs at the rear on the GT Super. That’s a genuinely serious braking package for a car that weighs barely over a ton.

Totem Automobili vs Alfaholics vs Gunther Werks

The most obvious direct comparison is Alfaholics, the British Alfa Romeo specialist known for the GTA-R 290 — a car I haven’t reviewed yet, but one that takes a very different philosophical approach to the same starting point. It’s also worth stacking Totem against Gunther Werks, since both companies are vertically integrated restomod houses working from a single iconic donor platform.

My honest read: Alfaholics is chasing the opposite philosophy from Totem. The GTA-R 290 makes do with 240 hp because it weighs just 830 kg — a power-to-weight game built around minimalism rather than raw output. Totem is doing something closer to what Gunther Werks does with the 993: building an entirely new, vastly more powerful car underneath a faithfully preserved silhouette. If you want the purest, lightest expression of the 105-series GT, Alfaholics is probably the better answer. If you want that shape with modern hypercar-adjacent performance — or a genuine zero-emissions option — Totem is doing something nobody else in the Alfa Romeo space is attempting.

The Ownership Experience

Like most companies at this level, Totem doesn’t sell off a lot — every car is a commission, built to the client’s specification. The “Litorale Brado” example, finished for a client who wanted a hand-carved wooden steering wheel and gear knob to reflect his woodworking hobby, is a good illustration of how far Totem will go to personalize a build. This isn’t an option list; it’s closer to working with a coachbuilder.

Donor cars need to be sourced before a build begins, same as any restomod of this kind, and a clean Giulia GT base has become meaningfully more expensive as restomod houses like Totem have driven up demand for good original examples. The total investment for a commission includes the donor cost plus the build itself.

Why the Giulia GT Specifically

The Giulia GT — sold under various Bertone-bodied nameplates from 1963 through the early 1970s — is one of the cleanest, most universally admired shapes to come out of postwar Italian design. Unlike the Porsche 911, which has stayed in continuous production for six decades, the Giulia GT’s lineage effectively ended, which leaves the shape frozen in a specific, celebrated moment rather than competing against its own modern successor.

That matters for a restomod house. Nobody cross-shops a Totem against a new Alfa Romeo, because Alfa doesn’t make anything like it anymore. The comparison set is entirely other restomods and other classics, which gives Quaggio and his team a much freer hand to reinterpret the car than a company working with, say, a 911 platform that Porsche is still actively developing and comparing itself against.

2026 Status

Totem is in active production across all four variants, with the GT Super the closest thing to a volume model at 40 planned units and the GTAmodificata capped at five. The GT Super SP, unveiled at Monterey Car Week in August 2025, represents the newest addition to the lineup and signals Totem is still expanding rather than settling into a fixed catalog. Given the company’s growth and increasing press coverage from outlets like Top Gear and Carscoops, expect waiting lists on the more limited variants to keep building.

Verdict

Totem Automobili is what happens when a working car designer decides the best way to prove a point about form is to build the car himself. The Giulia GT’s shape has never needed defending — it was already one of the best-looking coupes of its era — but Totem’s engineering underneath it, from the Italtecnica-developed V6 to the carbon monocoque construction, is a genuinely serious effort, not just a styling exercise wrapped around a warmed-over classic.

The GT Electric shows this is still a young company working out the last 10% of chassis tuning on an unfamiliar drivetrain. But the combustion-engined cars — especially the GT Super and the nearly 800-hp GTAmodificata — are proof that Totem belongs in the same conversation as the restomod houses that get talked about more often. If you’re shopping this segment and haven’t looked at Totem yet, you’re missing one of the more interesting builders working today.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Totem Automobili?

Totem Automobili is an Italian restomod manufacturer based in Marcon, near Venice, founded in 2018 by former Alfa Romeo designer Riccardo Quaggio. The company rebuilds the classic Alfa Romeo Giulia GT (105-series) using carbon-fiber monocoque chassis construction, offering both twin-turbo V6 and fully electric powertrains.

How much does a Totem Automobili car cost?

Pricing varies by model. The GT Electric starts around £445,000, the GT Super starts around €539,000, and the flagship GTAmodificata is priced at approximately €1.1 million for one of just five examples. All cars are built as individual commissions, so final pricing depends heavily on personalization.

What is the most powerful Totem Automobili model?

The GTAmodificata is the most powerful, producing 798 hp and 538 lb-ft of torque from a bespoke 3.2-liter twin-turbo V6 that weighs just 165 kg. Only five examples will be built.

Does Totem Automobili make an electric car?

Yes. The GT Electric uses an 81 kWh battery pack to produce 590 hp and 663 lb-ft of torque, with 250 to 300 miles of range and a 0-62 mph time of just over three seconds. It’s the only fully electric model in Totem’s current lineup.

How does Totem Automobili compare to Alfaholics?

Both companies restomod the same Alfa Romeo Giulia GT platform but take opposite approaches. Alfaholics focuses on minimal weight, with its GTA-R 290 weighing just 830 kg and making 240 hp. Totem builds a heavier but vastly more powerful car on an all-new carbon monocoque, topping out at 798 hp in GTAmodificata form.

Where is Totem Automobili based?

Totem Automobili is based in Marcon, near Venice, Italy.

More from Car Builder Spotlight

Totem Automobili isn’t the only boutique builder worth knowing about. Our Car Builder Spotlight series digs into the niche manufacturers, restomod specialists, and independent builders that mainstream media ignores.

• Gunther Werks Review — The California restomod house taking the last air-cooled Porsche 911 to 1,000 hp.
• Theon Design Review — The British restomod that builds a better 911 than Porsche.
• Kimera Automobili Review — The Italian restomod brand reimagining legendary rally cars.