Milano suspension outdated????

[C M Smith <cmsmith@domain.elided>]

I don't own one but I did own and love an 82 GTV6. How anyone can claim 
that a double wishbone torsion bar front suspension and a deDion rear coil 
spring suspension with inboard disc brakes is outdated is beyond me. For a 
fast street car there is no better set up ever designed, and I include the 
928's weird "Weissach" axle in that, with wonky toe in bushings, amateurs. 
Nope, design a better suspension for a rear drive street car and the hordes 
will be at your door asking for licenses. BTW, it is quite expensive to 
build a car this way, I wonder if that's the reason no one else does it, 
well except maybe Aston Martin for the last of the Vantage series, I dunno 
what they're using now for their latest monster, the fake Aston/Jaguar uses 
Jag's pretty OK rear set up.

BTW, years ago Ferrari developed a de Dion rear for one of their F1 cars 
because of it's extremely good geometry and fine anti squat 
characteristics. Tough to get the weight down to what is achievable with a 
double wishbone rear. A street car can carry the slight weight penalty of a 
de Dion set up in return for it's excellent wheel location and camber 
change (i e zero effectively) qualities, not to mention the vastly superior 
durability, strength and low maintenance. The only way to get the unsprung 
weight of a front street suspension down below a torsion bar set up is to 
use rockers and inboard spring/shock units. The only guys who came close 
with sprung weight spring shocks on a reasonably priced street car was 
those clever guys at Rover who, you guessed it, devised a clever rocker arm 
allowing the spring damper unit to be concealed horizontally in the fender 
(wing) behind the suspension arms. Guess it helped absorb crash impact 
also! Rover also thought highly of the de Dion rear suspension with Watts 
linkeage.

Multi link is just a complex and delicate way to achieve what is easily 
done with the Milano set up.

Let the flames begin!!!


Incidentally, to properly rationalize ownership of an older car like the 
ALFA is to compare the running costs with those of an equivalent new car, 
including depreciation and interest charges. If you do that you'll be 
driving old ALFAs forever, they're a bargain. AlfaBill is still correct 
that they are expensive to run, but compared to the cost of running them 
new, no contest, I should know, my Alfa is getting cheaper all the 
time...what am I saying!!!!


Michael Smith
Calgary, Alberta
Canada
91 Alfa 164L, White, original owner

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