Alfa Romeo, the brand missed

Jacques Duval

Friday, 20 October, 2017 07:20

UPDATE
Friday, 20 October, 2017 07:20

Look at this article

My colleague and friend late Paul Frère, auto racer, engineer, and probably the most paid of all the chroniclers automobiles, had not the highest esteem for the products of Alfa Romeo. Those of the 60’s, especially.

We laughed a lot together because we shared parallel careers, and that you had purchased both in the same Alfa Romeo, a Sprint Veloce that Paul described in his memoirs as the car is less reliable than it has purchased in the course of his life.

For my part, I was much more flattering in respect of the same car, which required frequent updates of its carburetors double body Weber. I had written that they were so capricious that it was enough to leave the site of the dealership, and take 2 or 3 miles (this was before the metric system) and the engine starts to misfire like a clunker.

This demonstrates quite clearly that the Alfa Romeo was suffering from a litany of problems that still today plague, wrongly no doubt, the reputation of the manufacturer.

Back on the canadian market for nearly two years, the roadster 4C and the sedan Giulia, are models of weak scattering, which does not help the purpose of obtaining data on their overall performance. I would invite even the owners of these models to share their experience, both the 4C that of the Giulia. It is probably too early to assess the behavior of the new SUV Stelvio which has just arrived on the market.

Road and track

For the moment, a few hundred kilometres at the wheel of an Alfa Romeo 4C on the road and the circuit Montmagny demonstrated the sportsmanship embodied in this model which is undoubtedly the road car that is closer to a track car, but the comfort is, as to him, an unknown entity. Even if you install the steering wheel is not an easy task.

As for the Stelvio, I would consider it an extrapolation of a sedan, which has inflated the contours. But let’s say that I do élancerais not by mountains and valleys to his flying without a cargo of spare parts.

Since the distant time where Alfa were regarded as “capricious”, these gorgeous Italian made progress, but it is always better to prevent than to cure. There remains, however, that Alfa’s are cars that have character.

It cannot be otherwise when we know that the 8C (in which the production is completed) was run on a V8 4.7-liter and 450 hp from at Maserati, sister brand Alfa. In short, these cars have character and the sound of their engine, brilliantly demonstrates.

Enough for my friend Paul’s Brother sharing my opinion, as far where it is located.