Alfasud, not an Alfa??

[M.Battley@xxxxxxxxxx]

Fowarded for Graham Hilder who is having trouble getting through:
maybe the anti Sud filter is on..... I'll stay out of it!

Mark Battley
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Back in Digest no.223 Dana wrote,

"When the Alfasud appeared.....  it was called an Alfasud, not an Alfa
Romeo, and neither the words Alfa Romeo nor the badge appeared
anywhere on the car. In the same year.....the word "Milano" was
dropped from the Alfa Romeo badge. .....some speculated that the
change in the badge and the lack of identifying marks on the 'sud were
efforts to distance the Milanese parent company from the new car."

Well that might have been the case initially, but it didn't seem to
last. Pretty soon, Alfa Romeo seemed to be more than keen to
deliberately associate themsleves with the upstart from the south. I
found in my collection of junk (er, valuable memorabilia, I mean), a
xerox of a full-page company advert for the Alfasud, from the English
magazine AUTOCAR, Sept 1973.  It says in bold wording at the top of
the ad-page "Alfasud -- totally new, and every inch an Alfa Romeo".  
And in even bolder wording at the foot of the page we see  "ALFASUD BY
ALFA ROMEO".    This then was the official line as early as 1973 it
seems.

And, from David Owen's book, "The Alfasud", we have:
"When the Alfasud range was updated in 1980, the Alfasud logo
on the dashboard was replaced with the traditional Alfa Romeo
script, and as for the rear external badge, the words ALFA
ROMEO were now added, in prominence, with the Alfasud name
becoming a subtitle only."  
(Mind you, I have to note that while our 1982 Sud TI is badged
that way, as Alfa Romeo Alfasud, the 82 Sprint is still badged as just
Alfasud, so things varied.   I suspect that the last of the Suds, the
QV Sprints, went even further and were named strictly as Alfa Romeos
only, but I can't be sure of that).   

I have an assortment of factory-original owners' handbooks for
various Alfasuds (all published c.1980-81), and I see that these all
refer exclusively to Alfa Romeo and Alfa Romeo S.p.A., and never to
Alfasud or the like except for one single word on the cover.

The indication seems to be, then, that the official company line
was to actively associate itself with the Naples car, if not on Day
One then beginning soon thereafter, leading to near-total assimilation
of the Alfasud brand by the Alfa Romeo brand around 1980, and
completely total I suspect from about '84 on until the Sprints ended. 
The unofficial perspective from Milanese people (ref John H's post in
no.222) may have been to regard the Naples cars as greatly inferior
and something to be kept right out of the family, but the official
line seems to have been different. Certainly, having owned, driven and
worked on several examples of both breeds from the 1970s decade, I
don't think either is inferior to the other in terms of design
quality, manufacturing quality, maintainability, performance in class,
etc. Both have much the same terrific strengths and shameful
weaknesses, in general terms.  (I must admit that the 105 cars of the
early 70s were of better quality than the first Suds of the same
period. However during the 70s the Suds rapidly improved while the
Alfetta and New Giulietta series sadly degraded the standards from the
north, so that any looking-down-the-nose at the Alfasud must soon have
become completely untenable. Perhaps the naming-changes show that the
company itself recognised this).

All this IMHO of course.
Graham Hilder,
N.Z. (Nomex on, and hopping in to my Alfa Romeo Alfasud TI).
           (As proudly proclaimed by the manufacturer's badge).

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End of alfa-digest V7 #244
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