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[alfa] Re: Stupid Looking Alfas



At 6:32 AM +0000 12/12/04, alfa-digest wrote:
Sorry, the bent-back Milano just never made sense to me. It is not
attractive, it serves no purpose, and still have to say, "Why?" Was
Chris Bangle working for Alfa in those days? Once inside though and
especially in a 3 liter, it is a blast to drive.
The Milano's trunk is as high as it is for aerodynamic reasons (the boxy car manages an impressive .34 drag coefficient). Why the trim along the side of the car has to bend upwards to meet the top of the trunk has always puzzled me, though. Funny you should mention Bangle though--he mentioned the Milano (75) in defence of the trunklid on his 7-series: "The car is quite a lot taller than before to allow more headroom, and the rear passengers sit further back. In aerodynamic terms there is a direct connection between the peak point on the roof and the spoiler line on the trunk. If the roof goes up, then the tail has to go up. The height of the roof dictates the height of the trunk. We could have put in a break after the rear doors, which is what Alfa Romeo did with the 75, or raise the entire belt at the rear in a wedge shape such as the Alfa 166. The third option was to run the belt line straight out to the back and cut it off, similar to what Volvo has done on its cars, but we didn't want to do that. What we did was take the belt line and wrap it around the back to make more sculptured lines."

Joe
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