BBC TV’s “Top Gear” has several items of faith. One is that electric and hybrid cars are not the solution. Another is that it is high time that Porsche employed a stylist. A third is that you may not describe yourself as a petrolhead unless you have owned an Alfa Romeo. I agree with all three.
It is ironic that Alfa Romeo celebrates its centenary with celebrations around the world, yet its future is in doubt. When the company launched the 156, in 1997, it gave even the doubting putative petrolhead an excuse to indulge, it was elegant and well-made, and the showroom no longer smelt of ferrous oxide as Milanese vermicelli set to work.
Annual sales grew to around 200,000 units a year, but have since declined to half that. Fiat is now pinning the future of the marque on a new model range, while also competing with it by reviving Abarth. In the UK, we have seen no evidence of a Lancia revival.
When I was a teacher, a colleague was Sue, the mother of my godchildren. Her husband, Neil, is a petrolhead, but also a teacher, so no Aston Martin at their house. Neil has bought a succession of interesting cars, including a Peerless GT, his sole transport for seven years—never once did he fail to get to work on time.
Once I got a lift into work with Sue in her Austin-Healey Sprite. Being chauffeured by a good-looking woman in a open-topped sports car on a summer’s day should have been memorable. So it was, for all the wrong reasons, it felt like ten miles of parking. She had no idea how to drive.
A couple of years ago, Neil bought her an Alfa Romeo 156 and the penny dropped. Sue suddenly saw the point of driving and made excuses to drive. She began to buy specialist magazines and go to meets. Neil has often been to the Goodwood Festival of Speed and I have taken the children. This year Sue bought tickets to the Festival because Alfa Romeo was being celebrated.
I have risen in her estimation, not because I know Stirling and Tony, but because I know Alfista Ed McDonough. That has to be a first!
When I joined a magazine, it had a green cover, a colleague had an Alfa Romeo GTV-6 that was always going wrong. Once the speedo cable broke and it cost a small fortune to replace because first you had to remove the engine. I told him to forget this scarlet strumpet and settle down with a nice, homely, sensible, Ford or VW, that would not lure him on and then break his heart, but he was besotted.
I had the use of a company GTV-6 for a time, and it cost me in spinal therapy. The cockpits were designed around an orangutan—long arms, short legs.[pullquote]
“With an Alfa Romeo there is always the sound. I swear that Alfa Romeo set up shop in Milan so it could be near La Scala. They could put in a phone call, ‘Placido, get your butt over here, we need a high C.’”
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Against acute discomfort there was the style, the balance, the way the steering fed information, and there was the sound. With an Alfa Romeo there is always the sound. I swear that Alfa Romeo set up shop in Milan so it could be near La Scala. They could put in a phone call, “Placido, get your butt over here, we need a high C.”
On the launch of the Alfa Romeo 75, the handbrake in the car I drove fell off and there was a worrying warning light on the dash. The guys attending the cars did the Italian shrug, they felt they had no future.
You can understand their despair, Alfa Romeo had been reduced to making the Arna, a Datsun Cherry with Alfasud running gear. In a pathetic attempt to make it distinctive, the cockpit instruments were ovoid, not circular. That is the only thing I can remember about the beast.
You could say that I was ambivalent toward Alfa Romeo. The 75 was launched in Milan and, having nothing better to do, I visited the museum. I went in a skeptic, and emerged a man in love.
Italian stylists created some amazing bespoke bodies on Ferrari chassis, but they were ordered by private individuals so are now scattered far and wide. When constructors adopted monocoque construction, the bespoke body disappeared along with most of the specialist coachbuilders. Enzo Ferrari also regarded an obsolete competition car as some owners of greyhounds regard their dogs: after they are too old to race, they are sold as meat.
Alfa Romeo’s T33 series had a separate chassis for which the company commissioned bespoke coachwork, and they kept everything. As well as the sports cars, there are the Grand Prix machines and coupes and saloons. The museum in Milan is not only as fine a history of the motor car in all its aspects as you will hope to experience, it is a sensual experience in a way that, say, the BMW is not. Do you wear a German suit, or one designed in Milan? When hungry, do you say you really fancy eating German?
From 1951, Alfa Romeo attempted to occupy that area between the specialist maker and the mass producer, rather like Jaguar. In fact, there was a period when Alfa Romeo and Jaguar were the only companies in the world to offer only dohc engines.
Unlike Jaguar, Alfa Romeo was open to mad suggestions. Take the Giuletta SS of 1957, that Bertone body was crazy, but magnificent. Alfa Romeo was trying to become a mainstream manufacturer, but it could still accommodate crazy. It still does, look at the 8C-Competzione. If you want the special red finish, and who would not, it costs extra. It takes six weeks to apply and costs an additional fifteen thousand pounds. These guys are still crazy, thank Zeus.
The orangutan was apparently pensioned off some time ago, so it is now possible to drive an Alfa Romeo without having to book an osteopath. I can express my love no better than to quote Henry Ford who once said, “When I see an Alfa Romeo, I raise my hat.”
