Re: Alfetta Turbodelta Sedans

[David Rubie <drubie@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

[deleted]
> 
> So, there seems to be a puzzle. It is conceivable that the relatively large
> numbers of Australian Alfetta Turbodelta sedans were elaborated by the
> Australian distributor, I suppose, by buying Turbodelta parts and adding them
> to standard Alfetta sedans. A partially comparable case existed in England
> where (according to David Owen) a British agency developed a Turbo version
> "when Alfa announced that they would not be making the Autodelta-developed
> version of the GTV, already on sale in the German market, available in
> Britain".
> 
> If anybody knows more about Alfetta Turbodelta sedans- either in Australia or
> elsewhere- at least two of us would be interested in more.
> 

I only have some incidental knowledge from when I lived in Canberra
a number of years ago.  There were two Alfa places I frequented, the
first "Autodelta" (no relation to the italian company) used to do
a large amount of servicing for me.  The owner of this place had
a Turbodelta Alfetta sedan.  Looked like a fairly late model car,
as it had 4 headlights in the style of the "Sportiva" Alfetta.  I
was never quite sure whether it was factory supplied with the
Turbodelta mods though.  I assumed he bought a "kit" and had the
work done.  He did say that he had long ago replaced the KKK turbo
with a Garrett or something.  The car was apparently not the most
reliable of beasts, this conversation occurred when he was showing
off some custom pistons he had to have fabricated to put it
back together after some catastrophe or other.

Second, at the other Alfa place (Ray Gulson), Ray himself told me he
had an "original" Turbodelta kit on his shelf somewhere, waiting
for some huge some of money to part with it.  I don't know whether
he was able to find it or not, I didn't have the sum of money
at the time.  Ray Gulson's had a big clearance last year, whether
the kit was unearthed or not I have no idea.  (If anybody has one
for sale though, drop me a line and I'll give you that vast
amount of money now).


I can only assume from this extremely weak circumstantial evidence
that the "Turbodelta"'d cars in Australia were all
locally constructed from Autodelta (the italian one) supplied kits.
(The kit was apparently pretty comprehensive, including rubber gaskets
for the Dellorto carbs so they'd hold pressure).

I've often wondered whether an original Bell&Colville (UK) turbo
conversion might have been better,  apparently the Bell&Colville
one dropped back to a single carburettor using a "draw through"
turbo setup, rather than the "blow through" of the Turbodelta.

dave.

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End of alfa-digest V7 #406
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