Sport Sedans and all that

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

Jon Pike asked about the Alfetta sedan variables I had mentioned.

The 'isostatic linkage' often called 'monkey motion', while the other had been
called many thing, limp noodle one of the more printable, came in about 1985;
all 75s, I believe all 90s, and late GTV-6s had the isostatic linkage, which
is much more crisp and precise but also sometimes comes apart on more worn
examples driven by less gentle drivers. Good drivers (Yo, Shorey?) who take
care of their cars find the earlier type quite acceptable, and I have been
told that it is really no worse than the remote linkages on some Ferraris,
Porsches and other ostensibly up-market cars.

Jon also asks what year divided the second series Alfetta berlinas ("Sport
Sedan" here) from the first series (certainly a sport sedan, but not a "Sport
Sedan".) 1978 here, 1977 in Europe. The first series carried over many details
from the 105/115 Berlinas, while the second series anticipated many details of
the Milano. Door handles went from a 105-style grab handle and pushbutton to a
recessed paddle, a partially chromed version of the all-black one on the
Milano; the hood went from front-hinged behind a cross-panel to full-length
rear hinged; front door glass went from divided with a wing-window to
undivided; badging went from script to block letters; the `105-like upswept
slotted cowl was flattened and plastic scoops added, producing a slightly
deeper windshield; the white-on-black instruments in a mahogany-veneered dash
went to colorful splashes in elephant-hide plastic; the round-glass conical
mirrors were bumped for trapezoids; the traditional round-hole steel wheels
were replaced by styled wheels with many radial slots, and the Turbina alloy
option gave way to a short-lived unique Campagnolo design and then a dish.
Front fenders, originally spot-welded into a lighter integral structure as on
the 105/115 were switched to more easily repaired bolt-ons like the Milano was
to have. People who coveted a modern new Milano probably preferred the second
series; people who now cherish a more vintage look may prefer the first
series, which are far rarer now. Second series added more luxury options-
sunroof, leather upholstery, automatic transmission, self-leveling rear
suspension, while first-series was in the pure basic-Alfa tradition of the
Giulias. There are many other detail differences, and differences between the
US version and the Euro versions- round headlights and a beltline rubrail on
our second series, rectangular lights, no rubrail, and no wheelarch chrome on
the Euro second series, etcetera. The last Euro versions, long after the last
unsalable US '79s were shipped home, had plastic lower body cladding like the
164, while the next-to-last had bumper-level moldings like the GTV 6. Nice
cars, all of them particularly in the versions which did not suffer from our
emissions detuning.

Andy Kress (Thank YOU, good buddy!) twitted me as a hypocritical philistine
for thinking of violating the virgins of Arese. Little does he suspect the
depths of my sometime depravity. My first Alfa, a Giulietta Spider, was
seriously dechromed when I painted it a blinding Mustang orange; yes, I threw
away the perfect, near-new eyebrows and pristine grill in favor of a recessed
black grid behind the nose apertures. The only badging on the car was the
small black-enamel-on-chrome cross-and-serpent from a 750 Sprint deck-lid,
mounted where the polychromed badge had been on the stock nose. Lots of other
little changes, ending with the new buttress seats from a race-stripped GTA.
But it was practically the first car I had ever owned which kept its original
make and size of engine; in that and some other ways I had truly been
seduced.

It is true that all of my current running Alfas are dead stock, but none of my
planned project cars are intended to be. None will be over-engined
barn-burners, or aero-kitted, or wide-tired sumpguard scrapers. None will be
judged, by me, against larger and more expensive cars. All will be tweaked
with, I hope, great respect for the qualities which drew me to them and their
antecedents in the first place. That may be part of the price of getting old,
I suppose, but even when I was a lot younger I could have had a Corvette or a
Jaguar or a Baracuda or a Fury instead of the Giulietta, and I didn't. The
people who bought Giuliettas in the fifties had their sufficient reasons, and
the residue of those reasons, however attenuated, still survives for some, and
something like it occasionally emerges in people who were never blessed with
that experience. You understand it, or you don't.

I think the nicest morsel to have emerged from this thread was Joe Cantrell's
"YMWillV". Well put: thank you, Joe.

John H.
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