Alfa Romeo Alfasud
Alfa Romeo Alfasud (1972-1980)
The Alfasud is a compact car that was manufactured by Alfa Romeo between early 1972 and mid-1983. It was presented in November 1971 at the Turin Motor Show for the first time the audience. The Alfasud had a number of technical innovations and was received with great interest.
Prehistory
To produce the Alfa Romeo factory in Pomigliano d' Arco was completely rebuilt in the vicinity of Naples and substantially extended. The situation in the south of Italy was godfather for the name " Alfasud ". The development of the entire project, including work planning was in the hands of the Austrian Rudolf Hruska, who had already worked for Porsche and Fiat. The design is by Giorgio Giugiaro, who founded his company Italdesign especially for this project.
The Alfasud was the first car with front-wheel drive Alfa Romeo and had a longitudinally-mounted water-cooled four-cylinder boxer engine. The basic version was initially an engine with 1.2 liter displacement and 46 kW (63 PS) at 6000 rpm. Later extensions of the displacement followed up to 1.7 liters. The particular advantages of the boxer engine are flat construction, smooth running and low center of gravity.
The fully synchronized gearbox has four or five gears. The front disc brakes are on the inside, this design has a lower unsprung mass. The front wheels are suspended on wishbones and MacPherson struts and fitted with a rack and pinion steering. Rear a light beam axle is fitted, which was led along to two watts rods and transversely from a Panhard rod. A second bulkhead increases the stability of the front end and attenuates engine noise through to the interior. The Alfasud offered sporty performance and a generous amount of space despite its compact external dimensions at a time when it did not exist the term "Golf class ". In motorsport the Alfasud was often used.
Production time
Series production began in April 1972. Firstly, only the hatchback with four doors and a small trunk lid was available. The first depicted in brochures and press releases two-door variant was not included in the series production. First introduced in October 1973 and most strongest model variant ti there was (even always ) as a two-door. Beginning of 1975 brought a three-door Alfa combination with the type designation Giardinetta on the market. In September 1976, the three-door coupe Alfasud Sprint.
Alfa Romeo Alfasud Giardinetta (1975-1981)
Alfa Romeo Alfasud Sprint (1976-1983)
Alfa Romeo Alfasud 1.5 ti (1979 )
Dashboard of an Alfasud
Facelift
In the spring of 1980, a facelift was performed in the Alfasud. In this, inter alia, Grille, headlights, bumpers, tail lights and dashboard changed.
The long demanded by the market with a large hatchback version was not published until the end of 1981. Coinciding with this innovation, the production of the station wagon is set. There were models with four doors (small trunk lid ), five doors ( big mouth ) and three doors ( big mouth ). The ti variants were always two or three doors, the less powerful versions were available in all body variants.
Production of the sedan was set in mid-1983 after 906 824 copies (in addition: Giardinetta with 5899 pieces). The coupe was built until the end of 1989 as Sprint ( without the addition Alfasud ). From it emerged 121 434 pieces.
With a combined one million pieces, the Alfasud series has achieved the highest production to date figures from a series in the history of Alfa Romeo.
Rear view
Alfa Romeo Sprint (1983-1989)
Problems
Italian cars were in the 1970s, especially in Anglo-Saxon as aesthetically appealing, but poor in durability. In addition, the quality of the Alfasud did not correspond to its advanced technical design. Inferior metals, lack of rust prevention, poor workmanship, design flaws, operator errors by the holder and repair requirements made it difficult to create. For example, the factory of the body cavities were filled with foam for sound insulation, but this resulted in a sustained penetration of these bodies by capillary action. It is reported that some vehicles do not already passed the first major investigation into rust, some other models are supposed to have come with rust damage eg to the door edges to the dealers. The reasons for this were, inter alia, the inferior Russian recycled sheets of compensation transactions with its rust -promoting content of non-ferrous metals.
The plant in Pomigliano d' Arco was in the twelve years of production on strike over 700 times. The largely unskilled workers who often came from the surrounding farms under difficult circumstances to work, it took not so accurate with the assembly and storage. Often said to have weeks stainless located outdoors all the coils. A special "call" it became the infamous " white series ". Here hundreds of body shells were stored untreated in the area around the factory and unceremoniously painted white to resume production, completed and sold due to a long-lasting strikes and production disruption. These vehicles were already with rust from your dealer and were after a single winter in Central European countries completely unusable and scrap heap.
The customers came with vulnerable and poorly adjusted carburetors chokes and other small items are often only barely cope. The factory remedy the defects was too slow and other manufacturers offered a better standard of reliability and service life of the vehicles. These problems were harming Alfa Romeo's reputation considerably, and even led to corresponding jokes like " Alfasud - the rust already in the prospectus " or nicknames like " Alfa Rosteo ".