RE: Alfa Romeo Alfasud | Spotted
Discussion
helix402 said:
Who can forget the Arna/Cherry Europe:
All the rage at the marina. I had one. It was free. It was my first car. It was an 1186cc, same colour as in the pic. 33 front brakes. Cherry rear axle. 33 front suspension.
Much maligned maybe but not as bad to drive as you'd think. I briefly had a Europe GTI after having lots of proper Suds, Sprints, 33's, The one I had drove really well, it had a sud ti engine gearbox seats etc,mixed with sunny (!) suspension etc, I think even the steering wheel, pedals and wiper and indicator stalks were all out of the Alfa, bonded into the hum drum Nissan. What I remember was it went very well, didnt rust and was stupidly cheap for a 5 year old low mileage Ti (under £1k). All the rage at the marina. I had one. It was free. It was my first car. It was an 1186cc, same colour as in the pic. 33 front brakes. Cherry rear axle. 33 front suspension.
Anyway, please stop talking about Alegros on this thread, I had loads of them at the same time as various Sud and Sprint, they were total crap not worthy of being mentioned in this thread!
coppice said:
AC43 said:
How strange; I'd never noticed the similarities in the styling but they're there.
However, what the Allegro didn't have was cool advertising from Amersham Motors in Car magazine.
However, what the Allegro didn't have was cool advertising from Amersham Motors in Car magazine.
I bought my second Sud as a result of that ad , and Amersham Motors were one of the reasons I never bought another Alfa. Them , and my local Alfa dealer Up North, who was reluctant to do any warranty work 'because everybody knows (I didn't) that your bloody car was sat in a field before you bought it '.
Out of interest, which one was it? I remember a neighbour buying a new limited addition Alfetta GTV in the early 80's. I seem to remember it was a cream colour. Maybe it was a Strada? Anyway, with 4-5 years it was rotting all over. Astonishing.
I think quite a lot of manufacturers/importers used to store cars unprotected outside for a year or two then add some kit & some stickers and sell them as "special editions".
My mate & I bought and helped others to buy something like 18 Alfas back then. We were meticulous; the slightest sign of corrosion and we were gone. This worked 17 times. But one mate was in a rush and bought a GTV in a hurry from the auction. Guess what happened to that one.,,,,,
rallycross said:
Much maligned maybe but not as bad to drive as you'd think. I briefly had a Europe GTI after having lots of proper Suds, Sprints, 33's, The one I had drove really well, it had a sud ti engine gearbox seats etc,mixed with sunny (!) suspension etc, I think even the steering wheel, pedals and wiper and indicator stalks were all out of the Alfa, bonded into the hum drum Nissan. What I remember was it went very well, didnt rust and was stupidly cheap for a 5 year old low mileage Ti (under £1k).
I drove an Arna for work and was extremely pleasantly surprised. Exactly as you say, it's the drivetrain and most of the interior of a Ti in a Cherry body and running gear. But it works. Not as delightful to drive as a 'Sud but whoever was responsible for tweaking the Cherry's suspension did a very good job and it still compares very favourably to other 80s hatchbacks in terms of handling, plus it has that glorious Alfa boxer engine. One of the most over-maligned cars, I think. Three-quarters of the sparkle of a 'Sud and none of the rust problems and objectively a very good second-gen hot hatch. Certainly worthy of more consideration than "styled by the Japanese and built by the Italians...LOL!". But I can see why it didn't sell well at the time, since it was never going to appeal to either the Alfisti or the typical Nissan Cherry buyer and it was horrifically expensive in comparison to its rivals. Plus, when it came to the Cherry Europe, Nissan already had the standard Cherry range and did essentially zero marketing for the Alfa-infussed version, while Alfa never wanted to push the Arna which they saw as a downmarket product imposed on them from above.
I think if you add up the total of the surviving Arnas and Cherry Europes in the UK you just about get to double figures - and one bloke in Lincolnshire owns half of them.
biggbn said:
My perfect Sud would be a very early ti with the 70ish hp 1200 engine. Anything more is excess. Wonderful, pure design. Wasn't keen on the later cars with their body kits and ever bigger engines
Agreed. Less is more with Alfasuds for me, but the ti is a much better looker than the standard car. My ideal would actually be an original Sprint, but for a saloon it would be one like the pic I posted on page 2. 2xChevrons said:
One of the most over-maligned cars, I think. Three-quarters of the sparkle of a 'Sud and none of the rust problems and objectively a very good second-gen hot hatch. Certainly worthy of more consideration than "styled by the Japanese and built by the Italians...LOL!". But I can see why it didn't sell well at the time, since it was never going to appeal to either the Alfisti or the typical Nissan Cherry buyer and it was horrifically expensive in comparison to its rivals. Plus, when it came to the Cherry Europe, Nissan already had the standard Cherry range and did essentially zero marketing for the Alfa-infussed version, while Alfa never wanted to push the Arna which they saw as a downmarket product imposed on them from above.
Sorry but the Arna was one of the worst cars ever made: https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/alfa-romeo/97620/alf...The fact that in 4 years they only made 53k cars in total tells how poor a seller it was.
The general view is that the Arna exhibited the worst qualities of each of its parents with tempestuous mechanicals, rust prone bodywork and indifferent build quality courtesy of Alfa Romeo, married to a Nissan body of questionable build and frumpy box like styling, with insipid handling common to Japanese cars of the time
AC43 said:
Ah, so the people weren't as terrific as advertised then....
Out of interest, which one was it? I remember a neighbour buying a new limited addition Alfetta GTV in the early 80's. I seem to remember it was a cream colour. Maybe it was a Strada? Anyway, with 4-5 years it was rotting all over. Astonishing.
I think quite a lot of manufacturers/importers used to store cars unprotected outside for a year or two then add some kit & some stickers and sell them as "special editions".
My mate & I bought and helped others to buy something like 18 Alfas back then. We were meticulous; the slightest sign of corrosion and we were gone. This worked 17 times. But one mate was in a rush and bought a GTV in a hurry from the auction. Guess what happened to that one.,,,,,
I bought a new , red 1350Ti from that shower . A638 RJO I think . Out of interest, which one was it? I remember a neighbour buying a new limited addition Alfetta GTV in the early 80's. I seem to remember it was a cream colour. Maybe it was a Strada? Anyway, with 4-5 years it was rotting all over. Astonishing.
I think quite a lot of manufacturers/importers used to store cars unprotected outside for a year or two then add some kit & some stickers and sell them as "special editions".
My mate & I bought and helped others to buy something like 18 Alfas back then. We were meticulous; the slightest sign of corrosion and we were gone. This worked 17 times. But one mate was in a rush and bought a GTV in a hurry from the auction. Guess what happened to that one.,,,,,
wpa1975 said:
Sorry but the Arna was one of the worst cars ever made: https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/alfa-romeo/97620/alf...
The fact that in 4 years they only made 53k cars in total tells how poor a seller it was.
The general view is that the Arna exhibited the worst qualities of each of its parents with tempestuous mechanicals, rust prone bodywork and indifferent build quality courtesy of Alfa Romeo, married to a Nissan body of questionable build and frumpy box like styling, with insipid handling common to Japanese cars of the time
It's undeniable that the Arna was a marketing and sales disaster - I said as much. It was almost tailor made to be an Alfa-Nissan hybrid that repelled both existing Alfa customers and existing Nissan buyers. The fact that in 4 years they only made 53k cars in total tells how poor a seller it was.
The general view is that the Arna exhibited the worst qualities of each of its parents with tempestuous mechanicals, rust prone bodywork and indifferent build quality courtesy of Alfa Romeo, married to a Nissan body of questionable build and frumpy box like styling, with insipid handling common to Japanese cars of the time
All I can say is that the one I drove did not exhibit insipid handling. The build quality seemed 'fine' for an early 80s hatchback too, but then they managed to nail Alfasuds together pretty well on occasion too.
The Arna's front end is carried over almost directly from the 'Sud, so it has very similar responsive, smooth and tactile steering.
"True, the rear suspension doesn't have the Watt's-linkage sophistication of the Alfasud (it uses Nissan Cherry trailing arms and coil springs) but the result is a car that still offers glimpses of the 'Sud's flair.
Twisty roads are best. In such conditions the Arna's front wheels track faithfully with accurate turn-in, telegraphing plenty of feel back to the driver through the precise (but low-geared) steering. The car feels taut and predictable. Certainly it will understeer 'in extremis', but the limits of grip are high and lifting-off mid-bend reveals no nasty tricks.
Fast open sweeps show the Arna in a less favourable light. There's a disconcerting moment of indecision before the car responds to the helm, which it then does abruptly making smooth cornering difficult to achieve...The ride too, isn't quite up to the Alfasud's high standards, although road noise is muted. The suspension rounds off most of the bumps effectively, but there is always an underlying restlessness which doesn't go away at speed. It's not actually uncomfortable, though, and a corollary of the firmness is a lack of excessive body roll and lurching in the bends.
...It has its faults, yes, but the crucial point in its favour is the driving pleasure afford by the Alfa Romeo power train. The Arna is no Alfasud substitute, simply a Cherry with a fine Italian engine. But, at the price, the combination works well."
Not my words, wpa1975, the words of MOTOR magazine!
Edited by 2xChevrons on Thursday 3rd March 11:30
Well the Arna might have been "quiet good". But it still was ugly. And the original Alfasud was just brilliant.
In an ideal world I am with the one and only woman, driving that one perfect car.
I took mine on the "grand tour" from Lake Como through France and Spain. Getting the hang of driving through the flow of bends on the riviera was just magic.
There are very, very few cars, which are able to "catch the ray of light", like that.
Reading on here, that the windscreens originally were meant to be integral load bearing elements ads a missing dot to my picture. At 7 years my example of a Sprint was already fighting heavily against rust. That was the dramatic part, that belongs into the great italian opera. But I always wondered, why the shell felt so flexible (flexing) and soft. In my view it added to the roadholding, much like the plywood Marcos cars hugging the road.
The Alfasud was a great sensual experience. A piece of art out of a different time
And me to is regularly thinking about getting another. It would be confined to become a static object in the heated garage on 300 days of the year though.
And they are doing very well. Day in day out. Which the Sud never could...
Exactly that one, but with a hint of bondo on the sills. Lol.
In an ideal world I am with the one and only woman, driving that one perfect car.
I took mine on the "grand tour" from Lake Como through France and Spain. Getting the hang of driving through the flow of bends on the riviera was just magic.
There are very, very few cars, which are able to "catch the ray of light", like that.
Reading on here, that the windscreens originally were meant to be integral load bearing elements ads a missing dot to my picture. At 7 years my example of a Sprint was already fighting heavily against rust. That was the dramatic part, that belongs into the great italian opera. But I always wondered, why the shell felt so flexible (flexing) and soft. In my view it added to the roadholding, much like the plywood Marcos cars hugging the road.
The Alfasud was a great sensual experience. A piece of art out of a different time
And me to is regularly thinking about getting another. It would be confined to become a static object in the heated garage on 300 days of the year though.
And they are doing very well. Day in day out. Which the Sud never could...
Exactly that one, but with a hint of bondo on the sills. Lol.
Edited by Martin 480 Turbo on Thursday 3rd March 13:35
biggbn said:
In my horse trading days I bought a red sprint 1.7 green cloverleaf from an old fella who had 'restored' it and sold it to a lovely fella from a car forum we both used at the time. He has restored it properly, a real labour of love. He is a member here also and has shown some pics of the car, looks stunning now.
Shucks 
It’s not back on the road yet, but not far off
Martin 480 Turbo said:
Well the Arna might have been "quiet good".
I took mine on the "grand tour" from Lake Como through France and Spain. Getting the hang of driving through the flow of bends on the riviera was just magic.
There are very, very few cars, which are able to "catch the ray of light", like that.
In 81 and 82 I did 2 x tours from Scotland to the south of France to Italy and back in a Sprint Veloce. It was my mate's but I was sharing the driving. Brilliant driving experience up and down various passes in Provence and down the amazing coast road into Italy.I took mine on the "grand tour" from Lake Como through France and Spain. Getting the hang of driving through the flow of bends on the riviera was just magic.
There are very, very few cars, which are able to "catch the ray of light", like that.
We got a great reception in Italy where none had ever seen a Veloce. Even better the following year when we went back in convoy with a GTV 2.0.
In around 1990 I drove my 1982 Veloce Sprint to Cisternino in Southern Italy and then back again. My then girlfriend (now my wife) didn't drive at the time, so I did all the driving. Back then you could get petrol vouchers from ACI to get cheaper petrol, and the further south you were going, the more vouchers you could get. Also, we had a route planned by the AA - it was about 3" thick on smallish fanfold paper.
The bearings on the cooling fan went about 30 miles north of Rome. It was fine on the motorway, but as we got into the city I had to have the heater on full and the fan on max to keep the engine cool. When we got to Cisternino I took it to a garage to get it fixed. The mechanic was extremely confused when he looked under the bonnet as everything was in the wrong place in his eyes. I ended up getting a replacement fan from a scrapyard, and was shocked when they charged me the equivalent of about £25 for it. It would have been £5 max in the UK back then.
We did the return journey in 2 1/2 days. The first day was around 800 miles on a single motorway, in a dead straight line - very dull
The bearings on the cooling fan went about 30 miles north of Rome. It was fine on the motorway, but as we got into the city I had to have the heater on full and the fan on max to keep the engine cool. When we got to Cisternino I took it to a garage to get it fixed. The mechanic was extremely confused when he looked under the bonnet as everything was in the wrong place in his eyes. I ended up getting a replacement fan from a scrapyard, and was shocked when they charged me the equivalent of about £25 for it. It would have been £5 max in the UK back then.
We did the return journey in 2 1/2 days. The first day was around 800 miles on a single motorway, in a dead straight line - very dull
2xChevrons said:
BogleDog64 said:
I think I read somewhere that the Sud was built in southern Italy (hence sud) as a government initiative to provide employment to the region. However, car building skills in the area were a bit thin on the ground. Add that to poor quality materials and lack of corrosion resistance resulted in their fairly short lifespan.
Precisely.At the time Alfa Romeo was owned by the Italian government via the Istituto per la Ricostruzione Industriale (IRI), an agency originally set up by Mussolini to rescue failed banks and industrial firms and then used by the fascist government to buy and control large swathes of the Italian economy. It was retained by post-war left-wing governments to handle the nationalised sectors and handle things like the development of the autostrada system, the modernisation of the Italian telecommunications network and oversight of the steel industry.
One of the IRI's biggest programmes was an ongoing attempt to address the huge economic and social disparity between the industrial north of Italy and the impoverished south - still primarily agricultural and almost feudal in many respects. Ever since the IRI had taken control of Alfa in the 1930s it had never sat entirely well that a government agency owned a company that almost exclusively made high-end sports and racing cars and this is why the post-war era saw Alfa make a succession of ever smaller, ever more mass-produced and ever more affordable saloon cars.
This culminated in the concept of the Alfasud - a new 'clean sheet' design for an affordable small family saloon that would provide a 'people's car' that was more in keeping with Italy for the 1970s than a Fiat 500. It would be a totally bespoke design, using no carry-over parts from any existing Alfa and it would be built in a dedicated high-capacity modern factory - and that factory would be in the south to alleviate unemployment and provide a hub of modern industry. It was designed by an independent design team and managed by a new holding company, Alfasud SpA.
The site chosen was the airfield at Pomigliano d'Arco near Naples, where Alfa had a factory making aero engines (latterly used by Finmeccanica - another IRI subsidiary - to make jet engine parts). This became a site of a vast new car factory, costing hundreds of billions of lire and with a maximum production capacity of 300,000 cars per year. Initial production was set at 175,000/year.
From the start there were huge problems finding staff and workers for the new factory - a core of experienced foremen and managers were 'recruited' from Milan to oversee the training of the new workforce and the start of production. These were mostly chosen by the IRI rather than their direct employers, and Alfa and the other Milan car makers often took the opportunity to get rid of some of their less capable or more awkward employees by recommending them for transfer to Naples. Moving to Naples was not seen as a plum posting and many of those who did go to the new factory did so somewhat reluctantly, convinced by high wages and guarantees of job security. The same went for the shop stewards that the trade unions recruited for Pomigliano d'Arco, ensuring that workforce started off with low morale, poor motivation and a bolshy, resentful streak.
The new workforce consisted mostly of smallhold farmers and labourers from the brickfields of Campania. Neither had any experience of modern industrial manufacturing and even the idea of shift work and waged labour was alien. Although their living standards were atrociously low these people by and large owned their own farms, passed down through each family generation and were self-sufficient in terms of being able to grow and harvest enough food, plus a small surplus to sell. There was a long cultural tradition of only doing 'enough work to live' and mutual informal work in exchange for whatever food or goods you couldn't supply yourself. Management at Pomigliano d'Arco had relatively little say in who they recruited since this was done by the IRI, which basically took anyone who applied on the promise of what were, for the region, fantastically good wages.
This caused chaos when the newly-recruited workers were expected to clock in for a ten-hour shift and do ten hours of consistent work that they'd been assigned to. Workers would wander around the factory, swapping jobs with each other when they got bored. Paid weekly, many would work for two weeks of the month and then not turn up for the other two since they'd earned enough to pay their bills and could relax at home. If they didn't fancy coming into work or some matter at home was more pressing to them, they'd send a family member or friend in their place. Many of the workers simply couldn't conceive that working in the car factory was full-time job and not just another bit of ad-hoc labour like volunteering to plough a neighbour's field or dig a friend's draining ditch, so when the tomato harvest season arrived around half the workforce simple didn't turn up for weeks on end since they had, by their standards, more pressing things to attend to back home.
Understandably this caused chaos with car production and is why the production totals for the Alfasud factory never got better than just under half what had confidently been set as the initial starting figure. As management tried to enforce punctuality and 'a fair day's work for a fair day's pay' that set the stage for huge labour relations problems, eagerly seized on by discontented shop stewards and political organisers who already had an axe to grind for being forced to leave Milan and take up a job overseeing a bunch of illiterate peasants outside Naples. So stoppages, strikes and disputes were rife whic caused further chaos with production and quality levels.
The quality of the steel used in Italian cars was never great in this period - partly due to the infamous trade deal to use recycled Soviet steel and partly due to industrial issues within the Italian steel industry. This included widespread use of reconstituted steel to account for shortages of raw materials and higher-than-expected demand. Reconstituted steel contains all sorts of trace elements and compounds depending on whatever was melted down to produce it, which with poor quality control can lead to the metal undergoing galvanic or electrolytic corrosion within the metal itself. This is why Alfasuds (and other Italian cars of the 1970s) are capable of corroding spontaneously from the middle of a panel - the corrosion is inherent in the very metal itself and all the primer, paint and wax in the world won't stop it. It also means that when something like a boot badge, chrome trim strip, stone chip or key scratch does break the paint that oxidisation happens quickly and spreads extensively.
The stoppages at Pomigliano d'Arco didn't help, since unpainted or part-painted shells were left unprotected in the humid Neapolitan air whenever the line stopped, and panels and shells were stored outside (with varying degrees of protection) if the body shop was working faster than the assembly line. When the paintshop was subject to a planned stoppage the ovens that 'baked' the paint onto the panels would be switched off, and as they cooled all the moisture in the atmosphere (added to by the steam from when the panels were washed with distilled water) would condense. When production started back up the panels were usually given little more than a quick wipe down before being sent on their way.
The Alfasud's design emphasised minimising weight and maximising rigidity. As well as this meaning that much of the metalwork was of the thinnest metal possible (making it prone to tineworm), the car had been intended to use a stressed windscreen, where the glass is bonded into the frame and carries some of the structural stresses. But this required very accurate positioning of the glass and thorough application of the adhesives, which Pomigliano d'Arco was unable to achieve in practise. So the design was switched to using a non-stressed glass with a rubber seal. But the windscreen frame and pillars were not redesigned to account for this, and with the glass no longer sharing the load this let the pillars and the front bulkhead flex. Combined with the inability of the factory to get even a standard rubber windscreen seal seated correctly a lot of the time, this let water into the bodyshell on the inside, causing severe structural corrosion as well as other classic Alfasud problems like ill-fitting doors - again, the factory often didn't get this right in the first place, but the door frames distorting made the problem worse.
Alfa did try and tackle the problems - for 1979 all Alfasud bodies and panels underwent electrophoresis and received zinc-chrome electro-coatings and phosphate primer. The doors, bonnets, boot lids and petrol filler caps were changed to be made from zincrometal alloy and the door frames and window surrounds were pre-treated with a zinc coating before painting. Completed cars received a thicker layer of underseal, the welded joints between panels were fitted with plasticised sealant, the major box sections in the body were injected with foam and more rubber gaskets and seals were used to prevent contact between metal parts and trim. Bumpers, rain channels, handles and boot hinges were swapped to be made of stainless steel. Which is all well and good, and the later ones are relatively less rust-prone than the originals, but it all still relies on the metal not being full of oxidants, the panels not being left outside for a few days and a tomato farmer turning up to work and actually fitting the windscreen seal the right way round!
Edited by 2xChevrons on Wednesday 2nd March 17:34
My dad had 5 all together, after moving up after several minis.
This was his first, the car I was taken home in after being born
This was the second, unfortunately written off with us all in it, the first car crash I was in…
That was replaced by this orange one, the car probably the closest in spec to my own one.
Replaced by a plastic bumper s3 1.3sc
And finally a gold cloverleaf with the twin carb engine, wood effect gear knob and steering wheel, and from memory the first car we had with electric windows!
This is a photo I took on my compact camera at around 6 years old
Followed by a pair of red 33s.
So I spent a fair bit of my childhood in cars powered by Alfa boxer engines.
This was his first, the car I was taken home in after being born
This was the second, unfortunately written off with us all in it, the first car crash I was in…
That was replaced by this orange one, the car probably the closest in spec to my own one.
Replaced by a plastic bumper s3 1.3sc
And finally a gold cloverleaf with the twin carb engine, wood effect gear knob and steering wheel, and from memory the first car we had with electric windows!
This is a photo I took on my compact camera at around 6 years old
Followed by a pair of red 33s.
So I spent a fair bit of my childhood in cars powered by Alfa boxer engines.
That's fascinating. Could you expand?
I never saw a serial buyer of Alfasuds standing it for more than 2 cars. How did those cars hold up? How long did your dad keep them.
Wasn't that incredible expensive? Over here the value of an Alfasud dropped like 40% with the first turn of the key. After 5 years -> scrap.
So effectively if you bought new it was as expensive to run as a much bigger and costly car. (that one might not have afforded)
I never saw a serial buyer of Alfasuds standing it for more than 2 cars. How did those cars hold up? How long did your dad keep them.
Wasn't that incredible expensive? Over here the value of an Alfasud dropped like 40% with the first turn of the key. After 5 years -> scrap.
So effectively if you bought new it was as expensive to run as a much bigger and costly car. (that one might not have afforded)
integrale_evo said:
My dad had 5 all together, after moving up after several minis.
This was his first, the car I was taken home in after being born
This was the second, unfortunately written off with us all in it, the first car crash I was in…
That was replaced by this orange one, the car probably the closest in spec to my own one.
Replaced by a plastic bumper s3 1.3sc
And finally a gold cloverleaf with the twin carb engine, wood effect gear knob and steering wheel, and from memory the first car we had with electric windows!
This is a photo I took on my compact camera at around 6 years old
Followed by a pair of red 33s.
So I spent a fair bit of my childhood in cars powered by Alfa boxer engines.
Ah so that explains red one you've got now :-)This was his first, the car I was taken home in after being born
This was the second, unfortunately written off with us all in it, the first car crash I was in…
That was replaced by this orange one, the car probably the closest in spec to my own one.
Replaced by a plastic bumper s3 1.3sc
And finally a gold cloverleaf with the twin carb engine, wood effect gear knob and steering wheel, and from memory the first car we had with electric windows!
This is a photo I took on my compact camera at around 6 years old
Followed by a pair of red 33s.
So I spent a fair bit of my childhood in cars powered by Alfa boxer engines.
What a great series of cars when you were a kid.
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