Re: calling all alfa innovations!

[JHertzman@domain.elided]

Ascher Baer recently posted, under the subject line "calling all alfa 
innovations!", a request: "from time to time i hear about alfa romeo having 
pioneered many of the technologies incorporated, and taken for granted, in 
today's autos.  i would like to be enlightened about some of them in order to 
successfully defend our grand marque against all those who dismiss it as a 
reservoir for faulty engineering."

I would suggest that "innovation" and "pioneering technologies" are not 
necessarily the same thing as exemplary engineering, and further that Alfa's 
history of often superb design gets muddied sometimes by dubious claims of 
brilliant innovation.

At the time of the introduction of the 164 in the USA ARDONA published a 
historical brochure with the title "The Legend of Alfa Romeo". It was 
probably produced by the advertising agency which was handling the account at 
the time, but it was presented to the public as a brief history of Alfa 
Romeo, by Alfa Romeo. The most blatant claim of innovation was a description 
of the RL Targa Florio of 1924, which it said was "the first car in the world 
to incorporate brakes at all four wheels". At some point a copywriter had 
probably seen some statement to the effect that "four wheel brakes were first 
used on the RL Targa Florio in 1924", which is perfectly true; 1924 was the 
first year that four wheel brakes were used on the RL Targa Florio, which had 
mopped-up the Targa Florio with two wheel brakes in 1923. In 1924 the front 
brakes probably contributed to Ascari's spin-out just before the finish line, 
which cost Alfa first place, just as they had probably contributed to the 
accident which killed Alfa's #1 driver, Ugo Sivocci, at Monza in 1923 in the 
P1, the first Alfa competition car to use front-wheel brakes. 1923 was also 
the first year that Alfa used front-wheel brakes on road cars, one of the 
last makes to do so. 1921 was the first year HYDRAULIC four wheel brakes were 
used on a winning GP car, the Indianapolis-built Duesenberg which won the 
French GP. 1919 was the first year four wheel brakes were used in the Targa 
Florio, on a Ballot. 1914 was the first year they were widely used in 
European racing, by Delage, Peugeot, Fiat, and Picard-Pictet. The first 
Milanese competition cars with front-wheel brakes were the Isotta-Fraschinis 
which ran at Indianapolis before the war; Isotta had been using front wheel 
brakes on road cars around Milan years before the first A.L.F.A. was built.

The same company history, writing of the "determination and innovation" of 
the company in the first years, says "Even the very first Alfa, the 24 HP, 
showed signs of racing intent with a light alloy engine - -" In fact, the 
pistons, rods, crankshaft, cylinder block (and integral head) were all iron 
or steel; the crankcase was light alloy, but the 8C 2300 was the first Alfa 
to use light alloy blocks and heads twenty years later. 

It is often easy enough to find the probable sources of such extravagant 
claims. P.21 in the Museo Alfa Romeo Catalogo is a likely source for the 
"light alloy engine", a block of text probably written by a young curatorial 
assistant who might not have known the difference between a block and a 
crankcase. It is also easy enough to spot them IF one has a pretty good idea 
of what Fiat, Isotta, Itala, Renault, Sunbeam and fifty other makers were 
doing at the same time. If starting with a late twentieth century perspective 
("innovation is good") and a limited knowledge of what the competition was 
doing it is remarkably easy to seriously misunderstand what Alfa was about, 
and to write unsupportable claims about "Alfa Romeo having pioneered many of 
the technologies incorporated, and taken for granted, in today's autos". As 
far as I know, they didn't. I believe that Jano's brilliance lay in 
assimilating, refining and applying the sound ideas from the constant flood 
of novelties; classic solutions rather than the brand new ones which too 
often harbored fatal flaws. Merosi, Jano's predecessor, had imprudently 
adopted the well-established idea of front wheel braking without fully 
understanding their potential for catastrophe. Racing history is full of 
great new ideas that didn't work.

John H.

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