Red badge used for a short period post World War Two.
Cars similar to this 6C 1750 raced at Brooklands.
name ‘Romeo’ (1919) and later a laurel wreath (celebrating Alfa Romeo winning the first World Championship in 1925) were added and the savoy knots and word ‘Milano’ (1972) deleted, recognising changes in both Alfa and national history, but the core design remains the same. One curio was the badge of the late 1940s that was an unfamiliar red with gold lettering and can be seen on the 1947 Freccia D’Oro in the main collection.
ALFA to Alfa Romeo
A short escalator journey takes you into the main part of the exhibition, the first two levels of which concentrate on the history of the road cars. Naturally this starts with an example of the first ALFA, a Castagna-bodied Torpedo 24hp, designed by Giuseppe Merosi. Of course it was ALFA (Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili or Lombardy car factory limited) at this stage as Nicola Romeo didn’t buy the company until 1915. There is one other ALFA on display, a 1911 15hp Corsa. It was the 1920s, with the arrival
from Fiat of engineer Vittorio Jano, when Alfa Romeo really started to establish its reputation as a maker of sports cars of the top echelon and the museum’s 6C 1750 Gran Sport with lovely Zagato body is typical of this period. Visitors to Brooklands for the VSCC Driving Tests will have seen Alex Pilkington drive her similar example on several occasions. During the period between the two world wars Alfas were amongst the super-cars of the motoring world and annual production was in the 100s. From the 1900 saloon of 1950 the product and volumes moved more into the main- stream, albeit still with that special ‘fever’, and the remainder of these first two levels cover this part of the marque’s history. It was still capable of building the odd exotic, and nothing illustrates the contrast better than the 1970s section where an Alfasud (Alfa’s first front-wheel-drive car) sits alongside a Montreal, whose V8 engine was derived from the 33 competition car.
For tifosi of the Italian carrozzerie (coach- builders) the next level of the museum will be a reminder of why we fell in love with Italian cars in the first place. Displayed here are examples of various concept cars built on Alfa chassis over the years, each an aesthetic masterpiece. Perhaps the
How fast would the Castagna Aerodinamica have been at Brooklands?
1970s contrasts of exotic Montreal (orange) and Alfasud family car (red).
35
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68