Alfa Romeo Giulia, GT and GTA Book Review

Tipler’s book is such a good seller that this is a third edition, updated and amended, printed in a larger format with over 100 more photos. Achieving three editions for motoring books is very unusual these days, and yet this is a limited run of only 1500 copies.

Tipler does justice to a brief history of Alfa, and the evolution of the GT and the specific models up to the GTV 2000. But soon he gets to the heart of the subject, the GTA and its racing history.

One must be aware that the book is not written from the Italian or American perspective; indeed, it is oriented in terms of the U.K. where the GTs sold very well indeed. In fact Tipler came up with a rare Alfa GT version, offered only in the U.K, called the GTV SE, complete with vinyl top and two tone paint meant to be attractive but did no justice to the Giugiaro design which was then, is now, and ever shall be a classic.

We just had to include this, despite the poor photo. Wonder if it still exists?

Since there is a great deal of information about the Alfa GT, GTA and GTV, concentrating on the GTA, restoration, racing and rallying allows the Tipler book to be sufficiently different. And there is a lot about the GTA, beginning with an introduction by Andrea de Adamich, whose career blossomed as he tromped through Europe winning everything in class with the GTA 1600. While this led to bigger drives with the T33, de Adamich fondly recalls his years driving the GTA. “The best memories, as far as excitement is concerned, are strangely enough linked to the GTA period,” he wrote. Excitement indeed, as he was the first person to lap the full Nurburgring in a Touring car under 10 minutes. He also won the race with the same GTA.

John French provides the classic GTA pose while winning an event in Australia in 1970.

There are some things Tipler’s book is not. It is not particularly technical – nor meant to be. It does not list all important GT and GTA victories although there is a long chapter detailing the racing seasons and victories (in particular those races run in the U.K.), one often yearns for just the facts. Tech specs are limited to reprint of magazines articles. There are no serial numbers relevant to even the rare GTA series; the nine appendixes are again informative but comprise of models, a brief production number chart, specialist directory, toy models, GTA homologation papers – essentially odds and ends.

On the plus side is a well-illustrated restoration chapter entitled “Recapturing the Coupe”, which shows in detail how to deal with rust. There was rust in all the 105 cars, even if it is getting to be that Tipler thinks that 105 rot boxes no longer exist. They do, just check my garage! Tipler describes the process like an expert…where and why the rust occurs. All the bases are covered with excellent color photos. After reading this chapter, the potential GT buyer will know exactly what to look for, where, and what the consequences are for ignoring those tiny little bubbles around the rear wheel openings. These hints basically cover all 105 models which use the same platform.

Despite considerable chassis reinforcements, the Touring GTC was a bit on the shaky side.

A chapter on Autodelta contains material from an interview Tipler had with Chiti before he passed away. The photos are from the Alfa Storica archives, a variety of photographers and Tipler’s own collection—a happy blend as so many of the earlier Alfa books used just the factory shots. The elusive and loose GTC (convertible) also gets some ink but deserves more.

Tipler too, ran into the mysterious GTAm appellation…where he concurs that the m should mean “Maggiore” (or does it mean, could it mean, Monobloc, the very special block he briefly alludes to) but the “Am” might be for America rather than the traditional “Alleggerita”. Good as anything else we’ve heard.

Tipler driving the Samba, a GTA found in Brazil.

Another interesting chapter comes at the end. Tipler visits Tom Shephard’s GTS Motorsport restoration shop taking on the work of doing some touch up restoration on a well-raced but fairly original GTA from Brazil. One gets an idea of how to go about doing a sympathetic restoration, and it’s nice to know that one can purchase a new 1600 GTA twin cam head in the aftermarket today, but I’d hate to ask the cost. Some 40,000 Euros went into the restoration and the body was not in need of much. It being a GTA 1600, at least it might be sold for what’s in it.

When reviewing the captions, we came up with several that didn’t make sense. However given the plethora of models, modifications, and changes over the years it is hard to pin down any definite errors. I wouldn’t use the captions to settle an argument though.

Another word to the wise is that GTA and GTAm fakes abound. How to avoid falling into the trap is not part of the book but perhaps should be. That might take another volume – but few are willing to take on such a controversial subject that might mistakenly diminish the value of an actual example.

If you don’t have a copy of this book definitely worth adding to your library; for Alfa nutters it’s mandatory and a pleasure for the rest of us.