Alfetta berlina (was: Alfetta Berlina)

["John Hertzman" <johnhertzman@domain.elided>]

Biba is "guessing this is a duh question and am now going to be told what
Berlina means in Italian." Yup, probably by several people. It means saloon.



Old Reliable d'Amico & Tabucchi and even older reliable Fusi both list
bodywork at the top of every table of technical characteristics - Modello di
carrozzeria in d'a & T, tipo di carrozzeria in Fusi. The Alfetta sedans are
there listed as berlina 4 porte 5 posti (all lower case) in Fusi, Berlina 5
posti, capitalized, in d'A&T. The Alfetta GT is Coupe 4 posti in d'A&T, coupe
a 2 porte, 4 posti in Fusi. They disagree on Alfasud Sprints; Coupe 4 posti in
d'A&T, coupe a 2 porte 5 posti in Fusi. They both agree that the original
Giulia T.I. was a Berlina (or berlina) 6 posti, the last six-seater Alfa made;
the Alfasuds, except for the Sprints, and the 33s, except for the Station
Wagons (good Italian terminology) and the 90, 75, and 164 are all described as
Berlina 5 posti.

Don't know whether it qualifies as a bit of Freudian slip into judgementalism,
but near the end d'Amico & Tabucchi drop the "Modello di carrozzeria" head
and, with the 145, instead list "Modello di vettura", sounding like a
harbinger of the "last real - - " arguments, but then for their last two 146
variants they switch back to Modello di carrozzeria. For some people the 145
was hard to take.

Alfa, as far as I know, never called the Alfetta fourdoors 'Berlinas' with a
capital 'B' or a badge; the two cars were officially 'Alfetta' and 'Alfetta
GT' from the start, but in more general use among audiences who might just
call an Alfetta GT simply an 'Alfetta' it could be less confusing to refer to
an Alfetta sedan for Americans, or an Alfetta saloon in English-speaking
countries, or an Alfetta berlina (properly lower-case) elsewhere. Since Biba's
Inspection Specifications publication, although printed in Italy, refers to
'Version 49 States' it was probably compiled in New Jersey, probably (I'm
guessing) by Don Black who was a US native heavily infected by Italian
sensibilities. His cohort was, I gather, more concerned with getting things
(including service communication) done effectively than with picking
terminological nits.

Cheers

John H.

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