Product description
At a time of intense social conflict, both inside and outside the factories, the Alfettina or “Little Alfetta” was born out of the need to find an heir to the successful Giulia, a car whose technical qualities had brought Alfa Romeo unprecedented commercial success.
With respect to the larger Alfetta, the manufacturer decided that the Giulia’s replacement would have to be offered with smaller displacement engines and less luxurious trim, partly because of an economic crisis that showed no sign of loosening its grip. While the engineering of the transaxle layout was retained virtually unchanged, from a design point of view, Project 116 was to break the mould, public opinion being divided by styling that was perhaps too avant-garde.
Referred to as the “sporting wedge”, it was soon to be criticised by the specialist press for its “duck’s butt”, the characteristic third volume conceived by Ermanno Cressoni, then working at the Alfa Romeo Style Centre. That futuristic feature, reprised with the updates of the later series, actually represents the model’s strong suit today: a modern, agile and fun car, with a wide range of engines, from the smallest 1.3 up to the rarer 2.0 Turbodiesel and the 2.0 Turbo petrol version prepared by Autodelta.
That of the Giulietta 116 is a story waiting to be told, a democratic car capable of bewitching all social classes with its charm, used by both the police and the underworld, with exploits that were to be featured in crime and comedy films which have today have attracted cult followings.
