A BRIEF HISTORY OF ALFA ROMEO

     

Glorious for many years and interspersed with heart breaking moments, no justice can be done to the history of Alfa Romeo within the confines of a few paragraphs.  This is only intended as a brief summary of its beginnings and major milestones.

 

Alfa Romeo was founded in 1910 as Anonima Lombarda Fabrica Automobili, which provided that immortal acronym, ALFA.  The company was originally set up in Naples in 1906 as a subsidiary of the French Darracq concern, to sell off surplus cars, but the following year the operation transferred to the labour-rich Milanese suburb of Portello.  Insufficient demand for these fragile, underpowered French cars broke the fledgling company, and it was reformed as ALFA by Ugo Stella, with Giuseppe Merosi as chief designer.

 

From the outset ALFA’s emblem comprised the familiar red cross of St George, which was the arms of the city of Milan, combined with the medieval shield adornment of the Visconti family, which is a serpent devouring a child.  The four-leaf clover, or quadrifoglio motif that has always featured on Alfa Romeo competition cars appeared on engine and chassis plates.  Early sporting successes during the inter-war period marked the addition of a laurel wreath to the border of the Alfa Romeo badge.

 

The First World War had the beneficial effect of introducing prosperous Milanese mining engineer Nicola Romeo to ALFA.  By arrangement, Romeo took over the ALFA plant in 1915 to produce compressors, tractors and Isotta aircraft engines for the war effort.  After the war, Nicola Romeo became managing director and the company thereafter was called Alfa Romeo.

 

A certain Enzo Ferrari established Alfa Romeo’s racing headquarters at Modena in 1929, from where he ran the works Alfas and maintained customers’ compeitition cars.  In the early 1930s Alfa Romeo virtually dominated international competition.  The car that accomplished so much was Vittorio Jano’s 2.3 litre straight-eight 8C 2300, which won Le Mans in four consecutive years from 1931 to 1935.

 

Meanwhile things were not going well for the company financially.  In 1933 ownership passed from the Banco di Sconto into government receivership and Alfa Romeo was refloated with its sights set on diverse commercial markets, including trucks, coaches, marine and aircraft engines.

 

Alfa successes in the fabulous Mille Miglia event were legion.  With the exception of 1931, one type of Alfa or another won it outright from 1928 to 1938.  Most notable were the 8C 2900s, which took the first three places in 1936.

 

Despite the devastation caused to its Portello works during the Second World War, the racing programme resumed almost the moment hostilities had ceased, using pre-war 1.5 litre Tipo 158 Alfettas, uncovered from their wartime hiding place.  With their derivatives, the 159s, Alfa Romeo achieved complete supremacy in the post-war years, up to 1951.  They recorded 25 Grand Prix victories in the hands of Giuseppe Farina and Juan Manuel Fangio, who took the first two F1 World Championships in 1950 and 1951 respectively.

 

Coming rapidly to modern times, in the 1980s Alfa’s credibility as a maker of production-line models was tarnished by the rust crises.  This affected not only Alfa Romeo and its rivals at FIAT and Lancia, but also much of the world’s automobile industry.  It is alleged to have begun during the 1970s, as a legacy of importing and using cheap but contaminated steel.

 

Perhaps what carried the company through those troubled times was the enduring support of a core of enthusiasts who continued to buy and enjoy Alfa products.  These people remembered Alfa Romeo’s red-blooded days of the late 1920s and 1930s, and the post-war Grand Prix domination.  Younger people recalled the heady days of the 1960s, when the little TZ coupes and later the Giulia Sprint GT and its GTA derivatives were invincible in their classes in sports and touring car races.

 

In the 1960s production facilities moved from Portello, restricted as it was from further development by a housing estate, to a new factory complex at Arese on the outskirts of Milan.

 

Attracted by government incentives and the prospect of cheap labour, in the early Seventies Alfa Romeo commenced production of the Alfasud hatchback at its Pomigliano d’Arco commercial vehicle plant near Naples.  Despite appalling labour relations problems at Pomigliano, the Sprint derivative of this excellent little car was still being built in 1988.

 

Despite its undoubted qualities, the Alfasud had cost Alfa Romeo dearly, and an attempt to head off financial disaster was made in 1980 by embarking on a joint venture with Nissan to produce an Alfasud-powered Nissan Cherry, marketed  as the Arna.  It was not a success in sales terms, and the venture ended there.

 

In 1987 the company was acquired by FIAT, after a take-over battle with Ford, from the state-owned Finmeccanica group, joining Lancia under the protective FIAT umbrella.  That was possibly the most momentous occasion in Alfa Romeo history.  With its future now relatively secure, Alfa began to rise with confidence from its lowly position in the automotive marketplace of the 1980s.  It took a decade to achieve, but in 1997 its fabulous new 156 had scooped the coveted Car of the Year trophy.

 

In the mid Nineties Alfa Romeo saw a veritable renaissance, starting with the GTV and Spider coupe’/cabriolet sister cars in 1995, continuing with the highly successful 156 saloon in 1997, the executive 166 in 1998 and the 147 hatchback in 2000.  All these models, with the exception of the 147, have now been replaced.

 

The latest generation of cars are as fabulous looking as ever.  The 156 has given way to the much improved 159 saloon, while the GTV/Spider have been replaced by the stunning Brera and Brera Spider.  The 156-derived Alfa GT coupe’, launched in 2003, is still in production while the 147 is approaching the end of its production life, to be replaced by an as yet unknown 149.  The 166 saloon, now out of production, will be replaced by the larger, top-of-the-range 169 which will be built with Alfa’s return to the US market in mind.

 

The cars which have made the news recently are of course the gorgeous 8C Competizione and its drop-top sister, the 8C Spider.  Highly desireable and expensive, these two models are been limited to production runs of just 500 units each, and have been produced in the tradition of glorious forbears such as the 33 Stradale and the ES30 SZ/RZ.                                                                                                                              

 

Last but certainly not least, the long-awaited small sports hatch, popularly known up to now as the Alfa Junior, has just broken cover and will be known as the Mi.To, a fitting fusion of the words Milano and Torino where the car has been designed and will be put into production.

 

 

Alfa Romeo Owners Club Malta

Photos by John Visanich at Centro Storico Alfa Romeo, Arese, Milano

(Updated March 2008)