Alfa Romeo
Automobiles S.p.A.
is an
Italian
car manufacturer
. It was founded on 24 June 1910 in
Milan
, Italy, as A.L.F.A., Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili.The brand is known for sport-oriented vehicles and has been involved in
car racing since 1911.
A.L.F.A. was property of Società Anonima Italiana
Darracq (SAID), founded in 1906 by the French automobile firm of Alexandre
Darracq, with some Italian investors. Darracq decided that Milan would
be most suitable as a factory location and accordingly a tract of land was
acquired in the Milan suburb of Portello, where a
new factory of was constructed. In late 1909, the Italian Darracq cars were
selling slowly and the company closed. Ugo Stella, with the other Italian
co-investors, founded a new company named A.L.F.A., buying the
assets of the Italian Darracq company. The first car produced by the
company was the 1910
24
HP
, designed by
Giuseppe
Merosi
, hired in 1909 for designing new cars more suited to the
Italian market. Merosi would go on to design a series of new A.L.F.A. cars,
with more powerful engines such as the
40–60 HP
.
A.L.F.A. ventured into
motor
racing
, with drivers Franchini and Ronzoni competing in the 1911
Targa Florio
with two 24-hp models. In
1914, an advanced Grand Prix car was designed and built, the GP1914, with a
four-cylinder engine, double overhead camshafts, four valves per cylinder, and
twin ignition. However, the onset of the
First World War
halted
automobile production at A.L.F.A. for three years.
In August 1915, the company came under the direction of
Neapolitan entrepreneur
Nicola
Romeo
, who converted the factory to produce military hardware for the
Italian and Allied war efforts. Munitions, aircraft engines, compressors, and
generators based on the company’s existing car engines were produced in a
vastly enlarged factory during the war. Alfa Romeo production had not been
considered at first, but resumed in 1919 since parts for the completion of 105
cars had remained at the A.L.F.A. factory since 1915. In 1920, the name of
the company was changed to Alfa Romeo with the
Torpedo 20–30 HP
the
first car to be so badged. Their first success came in 1920 when
Giuseppe
Campari
won at
Mugello
and
continued with second place in the
Targa
Florio
driven by Enzo
Ferrari. Giuseppe Merosi continued as head designer, and the company
continued to produce solid road cars as well as successful race cars (including
the 40–60 HP and the
RL
Targa Florio
).
Photo Alfa Torpedo
In 1923,
Vittorio
Jano
was lured from
Fiat
, partly
due to the persuasion of a young Alfa racing driver named Enzo Ferrari, to replace
Merosi as chief designer at Alfa Romeo. The first Alfa Romeo under Jano was
the P2
Grand Prix car, which won Alfa Romeo the inaugural world championship for
Grand Prix cars in 1925. For road cars, Jano developed a series of
small-to-medium-displacement 4-, 6-, and 8-cylinder inline engines based on the
P2 unit that established the architecture of the company’s engines, with light
alloy construction, hemispherical combustion
chambers, centrally located plugs, two rows of overhead valves per cylinder
bank and dual overhead cams. Jano’s designs proved both reliable and powerful.
Enzo Ferrari proved a better team manager than a driver, and
when the factory team was privatized, it became
Scuderia Ferrari
. When
Ferrari left Alfa Romeo, he went on to build his own cars.
Tazio
Nuvolari
often drove for Alfa, winning many races before the
Second
World War
.
In 1928, Nicola Romeo left, and in 1933 Alfa Romeo was rescued
by the government, which then had effective control. Alfa Romeo became an
instrument of Mussolini’s Italy, a national emblem. During this period it built
bespoke vehicles for the wealthy, with bodies often built by
Carrozzeria
Touring
or
Pininfarina
. This
era peaked with the
Alfa
Romeo 2900B Type 35
racers.
The Alfa factory was bombed during the Second World War and
struggled to return to profitability after the war. The luxury vehicles were
out. Smaller, mass-produced vehicles began to be produced beginning with the
1954 model year, with the introduction of the Giulietta series
of sedans, coupes and open two-seaters. All three varieties shared what
would become the Alfa Romeo overhead Twin Cam four-cylinder
engine, initially displacing 1300 cc. This engine would eventually be
enlarged to 2000 cc and would remain in production until 1995
Photo Twin cam engine
Once motorsports resumed after the Second World War, Alfa Romeo
proved to be the car to beat in Grand Prix events. The introduction of the new
formula (
Formula
One
) for single seat racing cars provided an ideal setting for Alfa
Romeo’s Tipo
158 Alfetta
and
Giuseppe
Farina
won the first Formula One World Championship in 1950 in
the 158.
Juan Manuel Fangio
secured
Alfa’s second consecutive championship in 1951.
1950s – The B.A.T. cars
The Berlina
Aerodinamica Tecnica prototype cars were
designed by Bertone as an exercise in determining whether streamlining and
wind-tunnel driven designs would result in high performance on a standard
chassis and whether the resulting vehicles would be palatable to the public.
Alfa 1900 Sprint were the basis of the B.A.T. 5, 7 and 9.
Photo Alfa BAT
1960s and 1970s – Descendants of the Tipo 33
The Tipo 33 racing car,
with its high-revving 2000 cc V8 engine became the basis for a number of
different concept cars during the 1960s and 1970s, which ultimately resulted in
the production of the Afa 33 Stradale.
Photo Alfa 33 Stradale
When the Alfa Montreal was introduced in 1970 it used a V8
engine derived from the Tipo 33.
During the 1960s, Alfa
Romeo concentrated on motorsports using production-based cars, including
the
GTA
(Gran Turismo Allegerita),
an aluminium-bodied version of the
Bertone
-designed coupe with a powerful
twin-plug engine. The GTA won the inaugural
Sports Car
Club of America
‘s
Trans-Am
championship
in 1966.
As Alfa Romeo was a
state-controlled company, they were often subject to political pressure. To
help industrialize Italy’s underdeveloped south, Alfa Romeo’s new compact car
was to be built at a new factory at
Pomigliano d’Arco
in
Campania
. Even
the car’s name, Alfa Sud (Alfa South), reflected where it was built.
18 January 1968, saw a new company named “Industria Napoletana Costruzioni
Autoveicoli Alfa Romeo-Alfasud S.p.A.” being formed, 90% of which belonged
to Alfa Romeo and 10% to Government controlled holding company Finmeccanica. The
employees had mainly construction backgrounds and were not trained for factory
work, while industrial relations were troublesome throughout. Absenteeism rates
in the Pomigliano factory ran at 16.5 percent through the 1970s, reaching
as high as 28 percent.
By the 1970s, Alfa Romeo
was again in financial trouble, with the company running at about sixty percent
of capacity in 1980. Since Alfa Romeo was controlled by the Italian
government owned Istituto per la Ricostruzione Industriale (IRI), a deal was
made where about a quarter of worker’s salaries were paid through state
unemployment agencies to allow Alfa’s plants to idle for two weeks every two
months. An aging product lineup and very low productivity combined with
near-permanent industrial unrest and Italy’s high inflation rates kept Alfa
Romeo firmly in the red. By 1986, IRI was suffering heavy losses—with
Alfa Romeo having not been profitable for the last 13 years—and IRI
president Romano Prodi put Alfa Romeo up
for sale. Finmeccanica, the mechanical holdings arm of IRI and its predecessors
owned Alfa Romeo since 1932. Prodi first approached fellow Italian manufacturer
Fiat, which offered to start a joint venture with Alfa.
Fiat withdrew its plan for
a joint venture with Alfa Romeo when
Ford
put
in an offer to acquire part of Alfa Romeo and restructure the company, while
increasing its stake over time. However, Fiat chose to put in a bid to acquire
the entirety of Alfa Romeo and offer job guarantees to Italian workers, an
offer that Ford was unwilling to match. It also did not hurt any of the parties
involved that an acquisition by Fiat would keep Alfa Romeo in Italian hands. In
1986, the deal was concluded with Alfa Romeo merged with traditional
rival
Lancia
into Fiat’s Alfa Lancia
Industriale S.p.A. Already in 1981, Alfa Romeo’s then-President Ettore
Massacesi had stated that Alfa would never use Fiat engine since the engines were
Alfa Romeo’s identity, but he would be happy to cooperate fully with everything
else.
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