Re: Giulia sedan bodies

[Scott Fisher <sefisher@domain.elided>]

Andrew Watry asks about the manufacture of Giulia sedan bodies:

> Did Alfa have a production line to weld Giulias together,
> or did they contract the work out to Bertone, Pininfarina,
> or someone else?

Alfa did indeed have a production line for welding the bodies of Giulia
berline and 105-series Sprints.  These cars were assembled at Alfa's
then-new factory in the Arese suburb of Milan, constructed for the
purpose of increasing Alfa's production volume to the level they wanted
to reach in the Sixties.  I believe the 105 Sprint GT was the first car
to be produced at Arese, or perhaps it was just the first coupe to be
built there, taking up from construction of the 750 and 101 series
Sprints at Bertone.

One of the three books I bought at the Historics last August (and it's
at home and I'm not... it was probably John Tipler's enjoyable book
about the Giulia Coupes) has several photographs of the Arese assembly
line, one in particular showing berlina and GTV bodies in white being
wheeled down an immaculate looking factory floor.  Most of the photos in
that book are credited to the Alfa Romeo archives.  It's quite something
to look down a long row of perhaps a hundred berline along one side and
a hundred GTVs along the other, disappearing into the distance on their
assembly dollies.  Except for the 1985 Historics, it's certainly more
Alfas than I've ever seen in one place at the same time...

> And I assume that, because Bertone did the restyle on the 
> 1750/2000 Berlina, they actually built those bodies.  Is that 
> true too?

Again, I don't believe so -- by then (late Sixties) only the Spiders
were still coachbuilt, by Pininfarina, with final mechanical assembly
and trimming being done by Alfa.  I'm sure that John H can confirm or
deny this out of d'Amico-Tabucchi, a better reference than even the ones
I am feebly trying to remember through a haze of painkillers after
yesterday's root canal (yeah, Fisher, start the excuses early :-).

- --Scott Fisher
  Sunnyvale, CA

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