Alfa Romeo
Alfa Romeo is an Italian brand of
sports and high-end cars founded in 1910 in Milan, Italy. Alfa Romeo cars have
always been known for their elegant design and high performance, especially in
the segments of Gran Turismo and Sports, also has achieved recognition with the
high-end sedans competing with BMW, Audi or Volvo, among other premium brands.
Clarifying that the founder of the brand was very inclined in the compact,
medium-sized Sedans and the luxury sedans representing the E-segment, the
coupes and rafters are the last ones to be considered as mass-sale cars: they
are more for a reduced public that acquires this type of cars "only for
weekend use and for more personal taste of exposure.
Our company offers the Alfa Romeo
compliance certificate for this vehicle through our website.
On January 1, 1910, a group of
Lombard industrialists decided to start the production of the model, and
Darracq sold them their Italian subsidiary with the Portello factory included.
In June of that same year the Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili was established,
adopting as symbols the red cross on the white field of the insignia of Milan
and the Biscione, the serpent on a blue field, symbol of the Visconti.
For his part, Nicola Romeo was an
industrial entrepreneur who also worked in the field of finance. In 1911, he
had founded his own machinery factory which he called Società in accomandita
semplice Ing.Nicola Romeo e Co .. In 1915, after taking possession of A.L.F.A.
by investors, he was put in charge of the Anonymous Lombarda in representation
of the banks and redirecting the Portello factory to the production of war
material. With the acquisition of the offices of Saranno and Tabanelli, he
changed the name of his first company to Società Anonima Ing.Nicola Romeo e Co.
After the end of the First World War, in 1920 he decided to merge A.L.F.A. with
his own company, thus constituting Alfa Romeo SpA, resuming the production of
automobiles. Alfa Romeo was owned by the state fund Istituto per la
Ricostruzione Industriale from 1932 to 1986. After having financial problems at
various times, it was incorporated in the year 1987 at the Fiat Group in Turin,
as other historic Italian brands such as Ferrari, Maserati and Lancia had
previously done.
The Alfa Romeo Certificate of
Conformity is available for all Alfa Romeo built by the European market.
The Darracq French cars were
highly appreciated by the Italian public and that is why Alexandre Darracq
decided in 1906 to set up a production line in Naples and set up the company
Società Italiana Automobili Darracq. Soon he realizes that the Italian industry
is concentrated in the north of the country and decides to move the company to
the industrial estate of Portello outside of Milan, buying some land of 36,000
m². In 1909 the company suffers a significant decrease in sales, and the
delegate of the Italian subsidiary, Ugo Stella, instructs engineer Giuseppe
Merasi to design a car to suit the Italian public, the 24HP. On January 1,
1910, a group of Lombard industrialists decided to start the production of the
model and Darracq sold their Italian subsidiary with the establishment of
Portello included. In June of that same year, the Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica
Automobili was constituted, adopting as symbols the red cross on a white field
of the Milan badge and the Biscione, the snake on a blue field symbol of the
Visconti.
After the war the company returns
to its initial business; Romeo merges Società Anonima Nicola Romeo with
A.L.F.A. and in this way the Alfa-Romeo Spa was born. Thus the first model
after the war, the Torpedo 20/30 HP of 4.2 l and its derivative sports 20/30
ES, are the first to appear under the name of Alfa-Romeo.
Shortly before the war began, Ugo
Gobbato decided to temporarily suspend production and give priority to the
manufacture of aeronautical engines and military vehicles. Alfa-Romeo factories
became strategic targets and Portello's was bombed in 40, 43 and especially in
1944, last year three times, February 14, August 13 and the October 20 that
reduced the factory to rubble and forced the company to cease all activity.
Peace arrives the following spring but the return to production is very
difficult. Ugo Gobbato, although he had avoided the requisitioning of raw
materials by the Germans, was accused of collaboration. He was acquitted twice
by the tribunal of the C.L.N. (Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale), but on April
28, 1945 was killed by two individuals on a street in Milan. The C.L.N. he
appoints the engineer Pasquale Gallo, commissar of Alfa Romeo, and between June
and July of 1945 he succeeds in resuming production. Lack of everything:
offices, materials, components and unable to manufacture anything else, the
employees of Portello produce electric stoves, metal furniture, etc. In spite
of all the problems in that 1945 they manage to take forward two cars 6C-2500
Sport with design of before the war. They also recovered the hidden Alfettas
that restarted the sporting activity.
What do I need to get my Alfa
Romeo COC? Information available on our website.
In the 1930s Alfa-Romeo became a
great company, especially in the commercial sphere. The dealers abroad were
replaced by subsidiaries directly managed by Alfa-Romeo, which formed a magnificent
sales and technical assistance network in France, England, Spain, Belgium,
Switzerland, Austria, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. In 1932 the I.R.I. (Istituto
per la Ricostruzione Industriale) takes control of the company and puts in the
direction of Ugo Gobbato, who restructures the departments: the sport leaves it
in the hands of Enzo Ferrari and his Scuderia Ferrari founded in 1929 to
prepare private Alfas and that Starting in 1932, it became the
"official" team of Alfa. In the production department, chain
production is introduced and plants are modernized, and production is also
increased to trucks and buses. The first bus is the Bussing 50 of 1931. The
T85G of 1935 wins the international tender for gas-powered trucks on a
Rome-Brussels-Paris route. The model 500, useful both truck and bus is capable
of carrying loads of 110 quintals at 70 km / h. During the Ethiopian campaign,
Alfa Romeo supplies the Italian army with more than 2000 vehicles.
In the production cars in 1933
came the 6C-1900, the last evolution of the 1750 with a light alloy butt and
greater power, of which 200 units were manufactured that preceded the launch of
the 6C-2300 designed by Vittorio Jano. Equipped with a cast alloy monobloc
engine with six-cylinder columns and 2309 cc light alloy cylinder head. It had
a single clutch disc and four gears plus the reverse. The rear shock absorbers
are controlled hydraulically from the driving position. It was sold in three
versions, Tourism, Gran turismo and Pescara; this last one of greater power (95
CV), arrived at 150 km / h. To maintain the superiority of the brand in the
Sport category, an eight-cylinder engine was produced with the same race and
caliber as the 6C model, the 8C-2300, with 2336 cc mounted on both the short
chassis and the Spider model. in the long battle or in the special chassis of
the Grand Prix car, the Monza model. The structure of the engine was different
from that of six cylinders: the timing control is mounted in the center of the
engine with a series of gears in cascade. The cylinders consist of two light
alloy semi-blocks with riveted steel columns. Although of more limited
production the 8C-2900 was considered "The fastest and most beautiful car
in the world" (see images).
For the Grand Prizes, the factory
had used the Monza 8C-2300 at the beginning of the decade, which was later
transferred to the Scuderia Ferrari, which increased the engine to 2.6 l, and
later sold to private companies. To replace them Vittorio Jano designed in 1932
the first real single-seater in the history of motorsport, the Type B Monoposto
"P3", a supercharged 2654 cc eight cylinder, which in 1935 was raised
to 3822 cc, 330CV and reached 332 km / h. It also included a host of technical
advances. One of the most original is the pinion located at the exit of the
gearbox and V-shaped drive shafts, which give power to the rear wheels, and the
driving position in the center. He was the great winner in the seasons of 1933,
1934 and continued to win in 1935. To face the most powerful German cars, the
Scuderia Ferrari commissioned Luigi Bazzi and Arnaldo Roselli to design a
single-engine car: the Alfa-Romeo Bi-Motore, therefore had 16 cylinders and
6330 cc that yielded about 540 hp at 5400 rpm. His two engines, one located in
front position and the other in central position between the driving position
and the transmission, made it very powerful but at the same time very heavy
(more than 1000 kg), which was not useful for the races but for speed record
attempts.
In the 1950s Alfa Romeo devoted
its greatest efforts to reactivating its production car sector. The double
objective of establishing chain production and making profitable its successes
in the field was widely fulfilled. The model 1900 of Orazio Satta Puliga, a
sedan with four doors and five seats was the first car of the Biscione with
self-supporting body and that relaunched the luck of the company and managed to
satisfy an increasingly demanding market. It mounted an engine of four
cylinders in line of 1884 cc with 90CV and 150 km / h that passed of the 190CV
in the models Super and Super Sprint. . This model introduces a new concept of
car, the high-performance saloon for everyday use, which as his lucky slogan
said was "the car of the family that wins races". More than 20,000
copies were sold, among them the 1900 Panther version for the Italian police or
the Matta version (crazy) for the army.
In 2004, Alfa Romeo manufactured
162,179 automobiles, 11% less than the 182,469 produced in 2003. In 2007 Alfa
Romeo manufactured 151,900 automobiles, 3.7% less than in 2006. In 2008, the
compact hatchback MiTo, the most small of the brand. The global financial
crisis has postponed until 2015 the plans of Alfa Romeo to reenter the United
States, a market that he left in 1995.