Chronology: Alfasud before Alfetta, certainly.

[JHertzman@domain.elided]

In AD7-507 Alex Jenner, mounting a spirited defense of the maligned (by some)
Alfasud, writes "The design was basically the Alfetta rear brakes transfered
to the front (or was the 'Sud developed before the Alfetta? - 'Sud prototypes
were running in about 1968/69).

Alfasud before Alfetta, certainly. 

Fusi heads his section on Rodolfo Hruska's biography "Sovraintendente
Progettazioni e Sperimentazioni di tutti i prodotti Alfa Nord, Alfa Sud,
Autodelta, Pomigliano, Spica".

Following Fusi's outline, after Hruska's prewar development of the vehicle
design and the Volkswagen Productive Complex in Wolfsburg and wartime
development and production of the TIGRE 70 tank he led a peripatetic career in
"Stoccarda", northern Italy and France from 1946 to 1967 when he was made
managing director of SICA, with the responsibility to design and produce a
utility passenger car in the south, which was to be marketed as the Alfasud.
In 1974, after the new car was established, Hruska left that position and took
the office of "Designs and Experiments Superintendent of the all Alfa Romeo
Group Products". There he did two cars, the Nuova Giulia and the Giulia
Diesel, which were modest revisions of the decade-old Giulia sedans, and
developed the basic family of transaxle cars which were the staple product for
Alfa Romeo until it ceased to exist as a separate company.

When I first used the terms 'Sud and 'Nord in communications with il Fossile
he bristled and blew me out of the water, saying that Italians (by which I
think he meant REAL Italians, i.e. Milanese) never used "Suds" as it is
considered derogatory, and added that I will never see him use the term
"Alfa", always Alfa Romeo, and that in Italy "Alfa" is never used by the
employees or owners as it is not a proper name.

Nevertheless Fusi, who was as Milanese as anybody, and a loyal old-line
retainer of Alfa Romeo, did use the terms Alfa Sud and Alfa Nord for the two
companies once Alfasud was an established presence, and did sometimes refer to
Alfa Romeos as Alfas, although I don't think he ever wrote of the Alfasuds as
"'Suds".. So it seems to be a sticking-point of pride among the purer of the
purist faithful, similar to always using GT Veloce rather than GTV for the
105-115 coupes to distinguish them from the Alfetta GTV, which was never a GT
Veloce.

Cordially,

John H.
Raleigh N.C.

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