Re: alfasud rarity/various grades

[Johnson David-QA2282 <David.R.Johnson@domain.elided>]

Joseph Kanellopoulos wrote: "Btw, the rumour there was that if the car had
been imported from Belgium it was a better quality and would last longer,
and I for one can attest that a friend's 82 Sprint (bought brand new in
Belgium and brough to Greece when it was a baby) was like new where someone
else's 81 had almost rusted through.
Just year difference or a coincidence?"

It could be a MY thing.  I owned two Alfasuds in my youth, a 1978 (5M maybe?
- a 1.3 4 door) and a 1983 (1.5 SC coupe).  Between these two models Alfa
performed some significant facelifting, enough that one could perhaps refer
to them as series 1 and series 2.  The 83 model had a revised interior,
plastic body cladding reflecting the trend for black plastic as opposed to
shiny chrome, and many other refinements including body panel changes.  I'm
inclined to say that the later car also had a real hatchback, as opposed to
the odd "fake hatch" look of the original, but alas, the memory ain't what
it used to be, and my books which reference Sud models are all at home.

Regardless, there was a huge improvement in the build quality of the later
car compared to the earlier.  It appeared to have a higher quality paint job
(metallic on mine) and a lot more attention was paid to rust proofing and
prevention via coatings, plastic splash guards and so forth.  Such was the
effectiveness of these changes that I sold my second car, then 8 years old,
with two surface spots on the A-pillars in front of the doors were the only
evidence of rust, and these spots had been present and of similar size and
severity when I bought the car at 5 years of age.  By contrast, I had had
the earlier car towed away by the authorities at the same age, due to
terminal rust of the A pillars, inner front fenders, and a few other
critical areas.  The pillars were so bad that I was able to poke my finger
into the inner cavity through layers of flaking rust!  So much for the
passenger safety cell.  Ironically I received a recall notice from the
importers 6 months after I had the car towed, warning of rust on the
suspension crossmember (one of the few parts of the car still intact!).

Without my books I cannot say for sure when this model transition took
place, but I have the feeling it was around the '81-'82 changeover.  In
which case, this may well explain the difference between the two cars you
mention.  AFAIK the Suds were built exclusively in Alfa's plant in the South
of Italy, and I find the idea that they would ship lower quality versions to
certain markets highly unlikely.  Imagine the impact on sales if that fact
ever got out to those markets!

Other possible explanations for differences include the quality of life the
car has enjoyed, since my '83 was low mileage and garaged while my '78
appeared to have had a hard life, and a younger car I looked at which had
been owned by a Navy officer and parked in seaports where it had rusted
quickly.  And if cars shipped to certain locations spent a lot of time on
the docks (as for instance may have happened to Alfas imported to the US
during slow years), that could have hastened their demise: this could
perhaps explain the Belgium rumour.

BTW, just for the record, I did not write "How many Alfasuds could you buy
in Europe for that much? All of them?", a question I have now seen
attributed to me at least twice.  I believe this was a quote from Andrew
Watry's original post.

Best regards,

Dave J.
1987 Milano Verde
1964 2600 Sprint

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