Alfa Romeo Automobiles

Alfa Romeo Automobiles S.p.A.  is an Italian car manufacturer. It was founded on 24 June 1910 in Milan, Italy, as A.L.F.A., Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili.The brand is known for sport-oriented vehicles and has been involved in car racing since 1911. A.L.F.A. was property of Società Anonima Italiana Darracq (SAID), founded in 1906 by the French automobile firm of Alexandre Darracq, with some Italian investors. Darracq decided that Milan would be most suitable as a factory location and accordingly a tract of land was acquired in the Milan suburb of Portello, where a new factory of was constructed. In late 1909, the Italian Darracq cars were selling slowly and the company closed. Ugo Stella, with the other Italian co-investors, founded a new company named A.L.F.A., buying the assets of the Italian Darracq company. The first car produced by the company was the 1910 24 HP, designed by Giuseppe Merosi, hired in 1909 for designing new cars more suited to the Italian market. Merosi would go on to design a series of new A.L.F.A. cars, with more powerful engines such as the 40–60 HP. A.L.F.A. ventured into motor racing, with drivers Franchini and Ronzoni competing in the 1911 Targa Florio with two 24-hp models. In 1914, an advanced Grand Prix car was designed and built, the GP1914, with a four-cylinder engine, double overhead camshafts, four valves per cylinder, and twin ignition. However, the onset of the First World War halted automobile production at A.L.F.A. for three years. In August 1915, the company came under the direction of Neapolitan entrepreneur Nicola Romeo, who converted the factory to produce military hardware for the Italian and Allied war efforts. Munitions, aircraft engines, compressors, and generators based on the company's existing car engines were produced in a vastly enlarged factory during the war. Alfa Romeo production had not been considered at first, but resumed in 1919 since parts for the completion of 105 cars had remained at the A.L.F.A. factory since 1915. In 1920, the name of the company was changed to Alfa Romeo with the Torpedo 20–30 HP the first car to be so badged. Their first success came in 1920 when Giuseppe Campari won at Mugello and continued with second place in the Targa Florio driven by Enzo Ferrari. Giuseppe Merosi continued as head designer, and the company continued to produce solid road cars as well as successful race cars (including the 40–60 HP and the RL Targa Florio). In 1923, Vittorio Jano was lured from Fiat, partly due to the persuasion of a young Alfa racing driver named Enzo Ferrari, to replace Merosi as chief designer at Alfa Romeo. The first Alfa Romeo under Jano was the P2 Grand Prix car, which won Alfa Romeo the inaugural world championship for Grand Prix cars in 1925. For road cars, Jano developed a series of small-to-medium-displacement 4-, 6-, and 8-cylinder inline engines based on the P2 unit that established the architecture of the company's engines, with light alloy construction, hemispherical combustion chambers, centrally located plugs, two rows of overhead valves per cylinder bank and dual overhead cams. Jano's designs proved both reliable and powerful. Enzo Ferrari proved a better team manager than a driver, and when the factory team was privatized, it became Scuderia Ferrari. When Ferrari left Alfa Romeo, he went on to build his own cars. Tazio Nuvolari often drove for Alfa, winning many races before the Second World War. In 1928, Nicola Romeo left, and in 1933 Alfa Romeo was rescued by the government, which then had effective control. Alfa Romeo became an instrument of Mussolini's Italy, a national emblem. During this period it built bespoke vehicles for the wealthy, with bodies often built by Carrozzeria Touring or Pininfarina. This era peaked with the Alfa Romeo 2900B Type 35 racers. The Alfa factory was bombed during the Second World War and struggled to return to profitability after the war. The luxury vehicles were out. Smaller, mass-produced vehicles began to be produced beginning with the 1954 model year, with the introduction of the Giulietta series of sedans, coupes and open two-seaters. All three varieties shared what would become the Alfa Romeo overhead Twin Cam four-cylinder engine, initially displacing 1300 cc. This engine would eventually be enlarged to 2000 cc and would remain in production until 1995 Once motorsports resumed after the Second World War, Alfa Romeo proved to be the car to beat in Grand Prix events. The introduction of the new formula (Formula One) for single seat racing cars provided an ideal setting for Alfa Romeo's Tipo 158 Alfetta and Giuseppe Farina won the first Formula One World Championship in 1950 in the 158. Juan Manuel Fangio secured Alfa's second consecutive championship in 1951. 1950s – The B.A.T. cars The Berlina Aerodinamica Tecnica prototype cars were designed by Bertone as an exercise in determining whether streamlining and wind-tunnel driven designs would result in high performance on a standard chassis and whether the resulting vehicles would be palatable to the public. Alfa 1900 Sprint were the basis of the B.A.T. 5, 7 and 9 1960s and 1970s – Descendants of the Tipo 33 The Tipo 33 racing car, with its high-revving 2000 cc V8 engine became the basis for a number of different concept cars during the 1960s and 1970s, which ultimately resulted in the production of the Afa 33 Stradale. When the Alfa Montreal was introduced in 1970 it used a V8 engine derived from the Tipo 33. During the 1960s, Alfa Romeo concentrated on motorsports using production-based cars, including the GTA (Gran Turismo Allegerita), an aluminium-bodied version of the Bertone-designed coupe with a powerful twin-plug engine. The GTA won the inaugural Sports Car Club of America's Trans-Am championship in 1966. As Alfa Romeo was a state-controlled company, they were often subject to political pressure. To help industrialize Italy's underdeveloped south, Alfa Romeo's new compact car was to be built at a new factory at Pomigliano d'Arco in Campania. Even the car's name, Alfa Sud (Alfa South), reflected where it was built. 18 January 1968, saw a new company named "Industria Napoletana Costruzioni Autoveicoli Alfa Romeo-Alfasud S.p.A." being formed, 90% of which belonged to Alfa Romeo and 10% to Government controlled holding company Finmeccanica. The employees had mainly construction backgrounds and were not trained for factory work, while industrial relations were troublesome throughout. Absenteeism rates in the Pomigliano factory ran at 16.5 percent through the 1970s, reaching as high as 28 percent. By the 1970s, Alfa Romeo was again in financial trouble, with the company running at about sixty percent of capacity in 1980. Since Alfa Romeo was controlled by the Italian government owned Istituto per la Ricostruzione Industriale (IRI), a deal was made where about a quarter of worker's salaries were paid through state unemployment agencies to allow Alfa's plants to idle for two weeks every two months. An aging product lineup and very low productivity combined with near-permanent industrial unrest and Italy's high inflation rates kept Alfa Romeo firmly in the red.  By 1986, IRI was suffering heavy losses—with Alfa Romeo having not been profitable for the last 13 years—and IRI president Romano Prodi put Alfa Romeo up for sale. Finmeccanica, the mechanical holdings arm of IRI and its predecessors owned Alfa Romeo since 1932. Prodi first approached fellow Italian manufacturer Fiat, which offered to start a joint venture with Alfa. Fiat withdrew its plan for a joint venture with Alfa Romeo when Ford put in an offer to acquire part of Alfa Romeo and restructure the company, while increasing its stake over time. However, Fiat chose to put in a bid to acquire the entirety of Alfa Romeo and offer job guarantees to Italian workers, an offer that Ford was unwilling to match. It also did not hurt any of the parties involved that an acquisition by Fiat would keep Alfa Romeo in Italian hands. In 1986, the deal was concluded with Alfa Romeo merged with traditional rival Lancia into Fiat's Alfa Lancia Industriale S.p.A. Already in 1981, Alfa Romeo's then-President Ettore Massacesi had stated that Alfa would never use Fiat engine since the engines were Alfa Romeo's identity, but he would be happy to cooperate fully with everything else.