"Ilike_cougars" (rohitvenkat01)
08/14/2014 at 14:38 • Filed to: Endangered Species, Alfa, 1900, Zagato, Bertone, Ghia
1
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"Ilike_cougars" (rohitvenkat01)
08/14/2014 at 14:38 • Filed to: Endangered Species, Alfa, 1900, Zagato, Bertone, Ghia | 1
| 0 |
Back in the 50s most of Europe was recovering from the war and as was Italy. Leaving the oddball bubble cars of the generation most car makers were back on track building proper cars. Alfa Romeo was doing pretty well at the beginning of the 50s, They had won the first Formula 1 Grand Prix in a 158 Alfetta driven by Giuseppe Farina and a second the next year with Juan Manuel Fangio. They had also introduced the 1900, a family saloon widely successful in Targa Florio.
The 1900 was the first uni body car for Alfa, where in was a problem for the then General Manager Iginio Alessio. With the advent of new manufacturing technology, it would leave most of the Italian coach builders irrelevant. Now Alessio was the co-owner of the firm Carrozzeria Touring, which is probably why he had made a different version of the 1900 unibody chassis just for the independent coach builders. Unsurprisingly Touring and Pininfarina were the builders that got official contracts from Alfa. This didn't stop other builders from acquiring their own suitable chassis and bringing out their own models, notable among which Zagato, Ghia and Bertone. In total there were 38 special versions of the car made by different builders. It is quiet interesting to see how each coach builder imagined this car so differently. For the most part engine specs were common using the 1.9L or 2.0L inline 4 with Double overhead cams, producing about 90 -115 horsepower.
Now take a minute and watch this video if you haven't so already,
!!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! put up a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! on the B.A.T cars which were also based on the the 1900 and built by Bertone go take a look.
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And finally some images I found on the interwebs while I was looking for information. there are some real good hits and a few misses
TL;DR: Just felt like writing something and exercise some writing skills and the Alfa 1900 was extremely cool in the 50s