[alfa] RE:Alfa diesels

["John Hertzman" <johnhertzman@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Paul Witek, following the diesel thread, writes "what I was really wondering is if anyone in the states had imported any of the diesels that came under the hood of various Alfas - they were never offered on this side of the pond.
 
"Of somewhat particular interest to me would be the turbodiesel offered on the 75 (Milano over here) and created by VM - inline 4 with individual cylinder heads?  Crazy!"
 
In March '00 Don Black wrote in a letter to me (mostly about cats, but that is a whole 'nuther story):
 
"don't forget the "diesel sports car"  I built for the SAE Congress years ago!  The GTV was to demonstrate the feasibility (commercially) of such a combination.  the idea came from the ever active mind of Filipo Surace ( chief engineer) of Central Director Centro Tecnico (Arese) and was a "why not" project. The car used the extremely efficient VM  (daughter company of AR) diesel and we fitted a Brown Boveri "Comprex" supercharger( concept too complicated to explain here, but compression employed some far out fluid dynamics).  Surace presented his paper at the SAE and I demonstrated the car on the roof of Cobo Hall in Detroit. Most drivers could not tell if it was a diesel at all, and most impressed were big bosses of the Tank Command.
 
"Later, of course, Penske bought VM lock, stock, and barrel when FIAT was divesting itself of "non core" Alfa products.  As the world knows today Penske has made VM one large success, to the point of reselling motors back to EU OEMs such as D-C and others.
 
"The Giulia TI used a Perkins (Brit) diesel.  But the 164, unfortunately, used a FIAT diesel.  During the transition the Sud/33 line used the "spaccaneve" 3 cyl VM sidesaddle with a front drive configuration.  It was necessary to add a counterbalancer to avoid the car be confused for a "low rider"(popular here in FL) and since the shaft was the forwardmost part on the motor it did remind one  of those snow throwers on the front of an Alpine locomotive!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
"More trivia, all worthless, but good memories of projects.  No, AR did not sleep during Surace's reign, he had many ideas being developed, but Finnmeccanica would not allocate budget for anything other than cheap "facelifting", and FIAT is even worse - - "
 
Don was often reticent about aspects of Alfa's (and his) history, but in a followup I asked him if this was fair game, and he replied "Why not?"
 
SO, if one is curious about the pre-164, post Perkins Alfa diesels one could do worse than nosing around Detroit. And if one is curious about Alfa (beyond the cars) one could do worse than nosing around the histories of the people, like Surace and Garcea, who earned the undying respect and affection of people like Black. There was more to Alfa than the cars and the company.
 
John H.
Raleigh, N.C.
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