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Alfa Romeo 8C 2900 was the fastest pre-war car. Designed to be a racing car, it applied fabulous technology like all-independent suspensions and double overhead camshafts engine with twin superchargers. Under the management by Enzo Ferrari, it won countless of victories in different events, such as the Brazilian GP, Spa 24 Hours and several years of domination in Mille Miglia. |
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Whenever
talk about classic affordable coupes, Alfa Romeo Giulietta Sprint is
hardly
forgotten. Nimble handling, beautiful balance and glorious engines
(world's
first mass-produced twin-cam engine) made it to be one of the stars in
the 50s and revived the reputation of Alfa.
It had many different bodies, the one shown here (as well as the best selling) were designed and coachbuilt by Bertone, while the Spyder version was styled by Pininfarina. |
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Although some people regard these changes deteriorated the original pure beauty, its appearance was still the main selling point during the 28 evergreen years. Today, every time I encounter a Spider in street, I still cannot help starring at its beautiful lines.
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If
we say Alfa Giulietta started a new era of sports sedan, then Giulia
GTV
must be the golden era. The Giulia sedan was bigger than its
predecessor.
In the highly-appreciated 1750 GTV version, it was powered by a
1.8-litre
twin-cam engine producing 118 hp. This beautiful engine accompanied
with
sports suspensions, 5-speed gearbox and all-wheel disc brakes provided
performance and handling shadowing even BMW 2002.
It was not cheap - priced at £2248 in 1968, it was much dearer than Lotus Cortina (£1162), Fiat 124 Coupe (£1438), BMW 2002 (£1597) and even Lotus Elan +2 (£2119), simply matching Jaguar E-Type (£2300) !! Despite that, Alfa Romeo sold 42,000 Giulia 1750 GTV in 6 years, and then another 37,000 Giulia 2000 GTV - a 133 hp 2-litre version. If not so exciting, how could it achieve that ?
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Which car was the best
affordable
car in the 70s ? Most say Volkswagen Golf GTi, but some people insist
Alfasud.
Both of them were the very first dynamic hatchback, but the Alfasud
appeared
6 years before the first Golf GTi launched in 1978.
Being the first cheap Alfa, Alfasud was produced in Alfa's new factory in South Italy, thus gave it the name Alfasud ("Alfa South"). Expectation was high, and its production volume was supposed to transform Alfa Romeo to a big car maker. Inevitably, space-saving and cost-effective design was adopted, such as front-wheel drive, MacPherson strut suspensions up front and rigid axle suspensions at the rear.
Highlight was the new boxer engine (also calls horizontally-opposed engine, or flat engine). Although returned to single-cam instead of twin-cam, superior smoothness and eagerness made it the sweetest engine available in the class for more than a decade. If the original power of 63 hp from 1186 c.c. was not completely convincing, at least its low center of gravity enabled exceptional handling. Of course, the sport-setting suspensions also contributed very much to the good handling. Later, the engine was enlarged to 1.3 litres, thus the car called 1.3Ti. At the end of the decade, it was even upgraded to 1.5Ti, with 105 hp on tap. Performance was of course superb - zero to sixty took just over 10 seconds, which was rocket-fast then. This could be only eclipsed by the 1600c.c. Golf GTi.
Journalists liked it very much, but the public was not so. It was soon found that the cheapest Alfa had serious problems in rusting as well as build quality, even more severe than parent company Fiat. Sales declined and Alfa Romeo's reputation dropped to the lowest level and was not recovered until the late 80's.
After 1982, Alfasud was succeeded by Alfa 33. Its coupe version, Sprint, continued selling as a baby GTV until the end of the decade. Sprint was also praised of good engine and handling, and build quality was far better than the early Alfasud.
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Have
you ever heard that Alfa builds the best V6s in the world ? The story
started
in 1979 ... after Guilia GTV, the company created a bigger coupe named
"Alfetta GTV" based on Alfetta sedan. It had a beautiful body styled by
Giugiaro, true 4 seats and a rear transaxle gearbox that improved
front-to-rear
weight distribution to 50:50. Handling was impressive, but performance
was not so, because it was still powered by 1.8-litre and 2.0-litre
twin-cam
four-cylinder derived from Giulia GTV.
Therefore, eventually Alfa had to create an all-new V6, displacing 2492 c.c., capable of 160 hp and 157 lbft. It enabled the new Alfetta GTV, now simply called "GTV6", to top 130 mph and did 0-60 mph in slightly over 8 seconds.
Everyone praised the V6 engine. Although it had single camshaft per bank, it was extremely smooth, willing, and musical. It was regarded as the best V6 in mass production then. The engine continued evolving to Alfa 164's 3.0-litre unit and today's GTV's 2.5 and 3.0 V6s.
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