The Last Hurrah

[JHertzman@domain.elided]

In AD7-1312 Jorn Bereng writes the uncomfortable truth about the ES30, but 
places the blame on the wrong shoe:
"I'm just curious whether any of you US digesters have ever seen one 'in the 
flesh', as I don't think it was sold in the US.   I have, and I think it's 
the ugliest car I've ever seen.  Zagato must have had a bad hangover when 
they did this one.  Of course it looks 'different', but so does a pink 
garbage truck..........

"It's amazing that it was designed by the same company who did the Giulia 
TZ-2,
imo the most beautiful Alfa ever made."

We have seen it, certainly in many photos, in road-test reports, in the book 
dedicated to the car, and in the flesh at the AROC convention in Detroit a 
few years ago. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I for one agree with 
Jorn that it is a singularly unattractive car, particularly when compared to 
the magnificent Proteo which Keith Walker mentioned (AD7-1304) in the "Dream 
Alfa" thread, or compared with the beautiful Zeta prototype which Zagato did 
on the GTV-6 platform in the early eighties- a masterpiece which has 
withstood the test of time but which Alfa chose not to produce.

The credit and blame for the appearance of the ES30 belongs not with Zagato, 
who merely built it, but entirely with Alfa. The car was developed shortly 
after Fiat took over the company, and the Alfa engineers, designers, stylists 
and executives who remained in limited positions with uncertain futures 
wanted to assert their independence by producing an aggressive design which 
would be unlike anything another company might have built. They certainly 
succeeded in that; nobody could mistake it for a car which could have come 
from Lancia, Maserati, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Fiat or any of the smaller 
companies - - or from the drawing-boards of Pininfarina, Italdesign, Zagato, 
or any other design organization. It is an extreme manifestation of Alfa's 
frequent concern that always some of its cars should look like no others- 
which lies at the root of the idiosyncrasies of the 75 and the somewhat goofy 
charm of the Giulia TI and Super. Alfa went back and forth, building cars 
like the Alfetta Sport Sedan, 90, and 164 which proved that Alfa could do 
conventional good looks as well as anyone else, but interspersed cars like 
the Giulia Super, Giulietta Nuova, and 75/Milano which could not be mistaken 
for another international standard "nice car". The ES30 was their crowning 
achievement in this, and more: sui generis, exactly what it was intended to 
be, a thumb in Fiat's eye, rude and magnificent.

John H.
Raleigh, N.C.

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