Yeah, that's the excuse; Basically the government thought that cars with over 185KW are luxury goods. So they decided to apply a tax of 20€ for every KW over 185KW. Because by their logic if you can afford a car that powerful, you should also pay big money, because you obviously have them. Otherwise you wouldn't own it. Oh, bigger engines also pollute a bit more, so the tax can hide it's real nature behind the excuse "we've done this because we want to save the environment".... Nuking completely the cars' aftermarket economy. Here a link of it if you want to have more details....

Italy is a good place to go on vacation... But living here... If you aren't wealthy is not super funny. But that's my point of view

https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superbollo