Alfa Romeo Alfetta (1972–1987)
The Alfa Romeo Alfetta was introduced in May 1972 as the successor to the Alfa Romeo Giulia 1962 berlina, and it arrived carrying a remarkable piece of engineering heritage: its name directly referenced the Alfa Romeo 158 “Alfetta” — the Grand Prix car that had won the 1950 and 1951 Formula One World Championships. The connection was not merely nostalgic. Like its celebrated namesake, the 1972 Alfetta saloon used a rear transaxle layout: clutch and gearbox were housed at the rear axle alongside the differential, rather than behind the engine in the conventional front-engined position. This configuration — borrowed directly from the Grand Prix car’s engineering philosophy — placed the drivetrain weight at the rear to achieve near-perfect 50/50 front-to-rear weight distribution, a first for a mass-production family saloon. The car was designated Type 116 internally and penned in-house by Centro Stile Alfa Romeo as a conventional three-box four-door notchback.
The technical package was highly unusual for a production car of this era. The rear transaxle was combined with a De Dion tube rear suspension, inboard rear disc brakes (reducing unsprung mass at the driven wheels), and a Watt’s parallelogram linkage for precise axle location. Front suspension used independent longitudinal torsion bars acting directly on the lower wishbones with separate dampers. Engine choices spanned a range of DOHC inline-four units: a 1.8-litre (1,779 cc, 102 hp) at launch, followed by a 1.6-litre (1,570 cc) and a 2.0-litre (1,962 cc, 122 hp; later revised to 130 hp in the 1979 GTV 2000L). The saloon ran from 1972 through 1984, with the Alfa Romeo 75 — the last rear-wheel-drive Alfa before the Alfa Romeo Giulia 2016 — inheriting the same rear transaxle architecture in 1985.
In 1974 the Alfetta GT coupé joined the range, designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro at Italdesign and manufactured by Bertone at Grugliasco. The GT and its evolution the GTV shared the saloon’s transaxle platform; Giugiaro’s fastback design, with its distinctive C-pillar ventilation slats, is widely regarded as one of the finest automotive designs of the 1970s. The GTV6 2.5 arrived in 1980, pairing a 2.5-litre SOHC V6 (2,492 cc, 160 hp) with the established chassis — a combination that produced one of the great driver’s cars of the 1980s, praised universally for its handling balance and sonorous exhaust note. In competition, the GTV6 punched far above its displacement: it won the European Touring Car Championship four consecutive years (1982–1985), and in the 1986 Targa Florio-era Tour de Corse, Yves Loubet’s GTV6 won Group A outright and finished 3rd overall against the dominant four-wheel-drive Group B machinery — a result considered one of the greatest upsets in rally history. Over 400,000 Alfettas were built across all variants through 1987.
Connections
- Alfa Romeo — manufactured_by, 1972–1987, source: wikipedia.org
- Alfa Romeo 158 — naming tribute; shares rear transaxle engineering philosophy, source: wikipedia.org
- Alfa Romeo Giulia 1962 — succeeded_by, source: wikipedia.org
- Alfa Romeo 75 — successor (shared rear transaxle architecture), source: carandclassic.com
- Bertone — manufactured GTV coupé bodies at Grugliasco, source: stellantisheritage.com