Alfa Romeo has written many of the most important chapters in
the history of motoring. The leading players in this story are the cars, the
designers, the races and the engines that were the stars of technological
progress and motorsport events in the Twentieth Century. This is the common
strand that links all Alfa models, a venerable gene pool of engineering features
and motifs that are critically reappraised and reinterpreted whenever a new car
is created. Now, as then, the Alfa Romeo designers and engineers are working to
design and build good looking cars that are full of character, to achieve the
elusive balance between reason and sentiment, between engineering culture and
design creativity. The finest expression of the inimitable personality that
makes a car bearing the Alfa Romeo shield stand out from all others on the
roads. And the Alfa GT is no exception.
The new sports coupé is a quintessential example of Alfa's
creative vitality and our exclusive understanding of cars. It is no mere means
of transport but a car able to give its driver true sensations and break through
the confines of necessity to the field of pure emotion: aesthetic taste, a
passion for sophisticated engineering, the sheer pleasure of sitting behind the
wheel and an expression of one's own personality.
The Alfa GT also succeeds in packing the results of Alfa's
superlative engineering heritage into a shape inspired by a sense of style and
flair that could only be Italian. The stylists were also able to call on a great
Alfa Romeo tradition that has brought us models that, particularly within the GT
category, remain benchmarks of their type: from the 1900 SS to the Giulietta
Sprint, from the Alfetta to the Giulia Sprint GT.
For the aficionados amongst us, there follows a short summary
of these historical cars. Each of these cars has lent a styling detail to the
new Alfa GT but all have given it its character of stylish sportiness.
Firstly, the Giulia Sprint GT. Designed in 1963 by Nuccio Bertone and introduced
firstly at Arese and then at the Frankfurt Motor Show, this extraordinary coupé
is a stylistic development of the Giulietta Sprint. The car is more compact due
to its slightly shorter wheelbase and features a penetrating shape hardly
interrupted by a bumper outline, with light clusters embedded in the grille and
tail end. The Giulia Sprint GT was equipped with a 103 bhp 1600 engine and could
carry up to four people. It remained in production until 1966 and sold more than
22,600. The car's roomy passenger compartment, generous luggage compartment and
top-quality interior made it a top-class saloon, but with an unsuspected sporty
temperament. So much so that the UK magazine Car and Driver wrote: 'Driving this
car is sheer enjoyment'. It was no mere chance the famous GTA logo was seen for
the first time on a subsequent version of this model. Now we have reached 18
February 1965, the year when Autodelta presented the Giulia Sprint GTA coupé,
where A stands for 'alleggerita' or lightened. The outer body was the same as
that of the GT, but the interior trim was made out of Peraluman 25, a light
alloy of aluminium, manganese, copper and zinc. The new car differed from its
sister externally in the addition of front air intakes, handles and the
triangular Autodelta badge.
The Alfa GT is truly the heir to this car of the early
Sixties that met with such great commercial and sporting success. The same could
be said of another two versions of the model: the Giulia saloon TI and the
Giulia Super 1600. An advertising slogan of the day said that the TI was the car
'designed by the wind'. The shape was revolutionary: low front enclosed by four
headlights, plunging bonnet, a windscreen as small as that of a fighter aircraft
and, above all, a cut-off end. The engine was a 1570 cc unit capable of
unleashing 92 bhp. Then came the Giulia Super 1600 of 1965, featuring padded,
wraparound seats and a facia with a wooden dashboard. The car was also fitted
with a chrome strip beneath the doors and stainless steel bumpers. All these
trappings disguised considerable power and torque: 98 bhp and 13.3 Nm.
Like the Giulia Sprint GT before it, the new Alfa Romeo model
harks back to another prestigious car: the Giulietta Sprint designed by Nuccio
Bertone in 1954, the car that many consider to be the forerunner of present-day
sporty Gran Turismo cars. A top speed of 165 km/h made it the fastest car in its
category. One year later, at the 37th Turin Motor Show, came the turn of the
saloon: 1290 cc cylinder capacity, 53 bhp and 140 km/h top speed (rising to 62
bhp and 145 km/h in 1962). Nothing could beat it in its market category at the
time and motorists knew it. For about ten years, the Giulietta - in the form of
the Sprint, Saloon and Spider - continued to exert the same appeal and increased
Alfa Romeo sales from tens of thousands of units to hundreds of thousands. The
hundred thousandth Giulietta rolled off the Portello production line in February
1961 in the presence of its godmother, actress Giulietta Masina. Although its
cylinder capacity and dimensions were small, the model deserves a place in the
history of Alfa Romeo sports saloons for the way it was able to interpret the
contemporary motoring zeitgeist: the uncluttered, appealing lines of a coupé,
state-of-the-art mechanical units, power and roadholding.
The third reference point for the new Alfa GT sports coupé
was the Alfetta, with which it shares its original styling, whereby a compact
external shape conceals optimum passenger room and a luggage compartment
measuring more than half a cubic metre. The Alfetta saloon went on sale in 1972
and immediately became an icon of the decade. It owed its success to its
excellent design, which combined an appealingly mettlesome style with a lively
engine, sophisticated mechanical units and great production quality. The engine
was a tried and tested 1.8 twin shaft four cylinder unit of 122 bhp capable of
carrying this car, which weighed just over one thousand kg and measured 4.28
metres long, to 180 km/h.
In 1975, the model range was extended to include a version
with a 109 bhp 1.6 engine (identifiable from the outside by its front end with
just two headlights) while the 1.8 underwent a couple of changes. The Alfetta
2.0 that appeared two years later was something else entirely: the redesigned
front end was ten centimetres longer; the headlights had become rectangular and
other changes had been made to the grille, bumpers, tail-lights and - naturally
- the interior. The facia was more linear (it was also walnut trimmed on the
2000 L from 1978) and the upholstery and door panels were in fine cloth. The
steering wheel, seat profile and instruments and controls were also different.
The bigger capacity made the car easier to handle and ensured the Alfetta was
one of the best balanced cars in its category. After 1979, it also became the
first turbodiesel saloon to feature a cylinder head divided into four parts, one
per cylinder.
We will close this brief review of cars that inspired the new
model with the 1900, in particular the two Sprint and Super Sprint coupé
versions that reached a top speed of 190 km/h. Apart from anything else, when
Alfa Romeo launched the 1900 in 1950, it invented the 'sports saloon' and the
model became the first Alfa with a load-bearing body. The result was, according
to a apt slogan of the day, 'the family car that wins races'. Above all, it
introduced the idea of a new motoring concept: a high-performing saloon for
everyday use. In some ways this four-doored saloon heralded the styling of the
Giulietta. It was very roomy inside and could accommodate five people, plus a
child on the front seat because the gear-lever was on the steering wheel. This
was a family car, yet it came with an effervescent 1884 cc four cylinder in-line
engine that offered the driver 90 bhp. This model took Alfa Romeo to success in
sporting competitions: the Tour de France, the Targa Florio, the Stella Alpina
and the Coupe des Alpes.
Altogether, the Alfa GT offers a deliciously nostalgic taste
of these four famous models, yet packaged in an up-to-the-minute shape.
Attention to detail is also its most telling attribute. Going back to the past
does not necessarily mean stealing the shape of an earlier car. It means
reclaiming the motifs that belong to Alfa Romeo by traditional right and
reinterpreting them in the light of opportunities offered by present-day
technology and contemporary customer taste.