'Das Alfa Romeo Transaxle Forum'

[Oliviero]

Ich habe gerede den in Abständen herauskommenden Berlina-Letter aus Amerika erhalten. Hierin ist auch ein Artikel abgedruckt, der die Situation Alfas in Südafrika zeigt, recht interessant:

More on South African Alfa Scene
by Malcom van Coller
Alfa Romeo entered the SA market in 1960 and cars were built (from knocked-down kits (CKD)) in a factory in Booysens in Johannesburg with Giuliettas. These little 1300s caused a stir on the racetrack and beat big V8s and even the Porsches on the track. Demand grew in leaps and bounds. Later production (still CKD) was moved to the CDA (Car Distributors and Assemblers) in East London, who also built the Mercedes Benz cars in SA. In the late 60s the the CKD production was moved to Nissan, near Pretoria, and production moved from CKD to completely built in SA cars. This included the 1750 Berlinas. All Alfas built in South Africa (SA) were RHD models, of course.

With the introduction of the Alfetta, Alfa had a factory built in Brits (30 miles west of Pretoria) and moved all production there. The 2000 Berlinas came from that factory. All SA sold cars were initially build there after 1972/73, with the exception of post 1975 Spiders and some Alfa Six Saloons (119i V6). These imported cars were all LHD. In this period, Alfa SA was run by an Italian engineer, Vito Bianco.

Alfa SA had about 4 percent of the SA market from the mid 1960s to the early 1980s. This rose to 7 percent in 1980 to 1984, and was mainly because of the launch of the "new" Giuliettas (first in 1800cc and in 1982 in 2000cc models). Sales were further boosted when the Giulietta was voted the SA Car of the Year in 1981 or 1982. The Alfetta 2000 won the Towing Car of the year, every year from about 1976 to 1982 when the Giulietta 2000 took over until Alfa SA's demise in September 1985.

Alfa SA also built some strange cars, ones you will not find in any international publications. Examples of these are:

Alfetta GTV6 3000: Alfa built 205 of these cars in conjunction with Autodelta. 200 had to be built to be homologated to race in SA. They were built to race in the Group N series. The were Alfa's answer to the BMW 530i and later the BMW 535i and Ford's Sierra V8 (Mustang V8 transplant). The GTV 3000 beat the competition 90 percent of the time.

Alfetta 2.5 V6: There is no record of exactly how many of these were built, but about 5 or 6 are known to exist. These was rumoured to have been prototypes built for racing but was abandoned in favour of the Alfetta GTV6 3000.

Alfetta 2000 Super Executive Turbo: 100 bodies were prepared but only 51 were actually fitted with turbo motors. It was a locally developed motor and body and included many GTV6 parts, such as suspension, twin plate clutch plates, 3-pot brake calipers and vented brake rotors, radiators and 5-stud wheels and HR-rated 14-inch tyres. It was also thought that these were built with any eye on getting the Alfetta Turbo homologated for Group N racing. I had one of these cars, Serial no. 0005. By turning up the turbo boost to one bar (about 13.4 psi), the car was good for 240 kph and 165 kw (about 150 mph and 220 hp)

Giulietta 2.5 V6: There is no record of exactly how many of these were built, but about 5 or 6 are known to exist. These was rumoured to have been prototypes built for racing but was abandoned in favour of the Alfetta GTV6 3000.

Giulietta 2000 Turbo: Alfa had ceased production of the Alfetta Super but had some turbo motors left, so they whipped out the standard 1800 Giulietta motors and fitted the 2000 turbo motors they had left into these bodies. No other mods were made, they left the brakes and suspension standard. They even left the steel rims and 165/70SR13 tyres on these cars!! Can you imagine all that power and speed on those tyres and brakes! About 40 of these cars were built.

One of the saddest parts of Alfa's withdrawal from SA was the destruction of Alfa Romeo parts that were worth millions. All manufacturers had an agreement with the SA government about paying import duties on spares. This made it possible for them to import the spares but to pay duties (around 20 percent) on the spares only when sold. These spares sat in a bonded warehouse until sold. Once the spares were sold to motor dealers and left the warehous, duties became payable. When Alfa left in 1985, the whole thing fell apart. Alfa could not re-export the spares without paying some of the duties, they did not have the money to release the spares to sell to the public in such a short time, and dealers did not have the need or capacity to buy all the spares up. Millions' worth of spares were packed onto a concrete parking lot and customs brought in a tractor to drive over and destroy the spares, just so that no duties would be payable. Can you believe such waste?

Ciaoliviero

[Quadrifoglio_Oro]

War zwar noch nie an den Wichtigen Alfaplätzten z.B. in Italien, aber wenigstens war ich schonmal in der Alfafabrik in Britz und bin gut 11 Jahr fast wöchentlich dort vorbei. Bei GoogleEarth findet ihr es an der Kreuzung bei 25°39'03.40 S / 27°48'42.48 O (ist das einzige Gebäude an der Kreuzung )

Dort standen noch bis ca. 96 unfertige Karosserien im Fließband, so wie es alles am letzten Arbeitstag verlassen wurden. Ein Ersatzteilparadies dass dann komplett verschrottet wurde als die jetzige Tabakfirma einzog


Zur Alfetta 2000, die war nicht wie hier bereits 2. Serie, sondern war noch ein Chrommodell

QO