By Pete Vack
Alfa Romeo Photo copyright Alessandro Gerelli
For our celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Alfa Romeo Giulietta, we listen in on a conversation that took place in a restaurant near a small college in Des Moines, Iowa, in the Year of our Lord 1960.
"Hey, Alphie---Alphie Romero--come on over here." Jack Okeefe's voice bounced from the bar to the table where Dan Johnson was pouring a glass of wine. Dan glanced across the room. He wasn't about to get up and make Okeefe happy. But to his surprise and relief, Okeefe, who stood 6'4" in stocking feet and weighed in at about 250 lbs., suddenly headed his way and sat down at the table.
"You and me are gonna talk about something,", said Okeefe, "but for once, I'm gonna listen." Despite his slept-in football letter jacket and greasy hair, Johnson figured Okeefe was very bright. "Johnson, you seem pretty smart to me. I mean you're ok in my book. So I hope you don't take too much offense if I asks you a question."
"No, I guess I won't mind. Go ahead, shoot."
"Ok." Okeefe paused for a second, for even he knew that it is uncool to criticize a guy's girlfriend or his car. "Me and my buddies keep wondering---
Why you drive that Eye-Talian piece of shit out there in the parking lot?"
True to form, Okeefe owned a 1957 Chevy Impala, lowered, with Moon hubcaps, twin pipes and a nicely breathed on 283 c.i. V-8. He loved his car. And cars in general. But he could not figure Johnson. Damn kid could at least drive a Ford or probably had the money for a 'Vette. But an Alpha Romero?
"Do you really want to know or are you just wasting my time?"
"I’m serious. I guess I just gotta know what a nice guy like you is doing with a piece of shit like that."
Johnson ordered another bottle of wine. Okeefe looked at the Budweiser sign.
Johnson knew this was not going to be easy. There was a vast divide, a difference in outlook that was forged by parents, experiences and friends. Okeefe knew little about Italy. His father had grown up in a Scottish-Irish neighborhood, where the words "Dago" and "Wop" could have been coined. As a corporal in WWII, Okeefe's father was wounded at Anzio and captured. Jack's disparaging opinions of Italians were based on those of his father. Johnson’s father, of Swedish descent, had also been to Italy. But as an Army lieutenant he helped liberate Rome and was entranced by what he saw and experienced. Prejudices and pleasures were passed down from father to son.
"Okay," said Johnson, scrounging up some paper napkins for sketch material. "Let me make a broad statement, then we'll get into details."
"Makes you sound like our history prof", said Okeefe.
Johnson made a mental note not to lecture. "Alfa Romeo has been racing since the 1920s. They’ve won every major road race in Europe. Until 1950, producing road cars was a sideline. When mass production of road vehicles got underway, Alfa used their best engineers and racing experience to create one of the greatest small cars ever made--- the Alfa Romeo Giulietta. Alfas have always been great cars though. It is even said that even Henry Ford would tip his hat when encountering an Alfa Romeo."
"Ford makes shit for cars anyway." Johnson ignored the expected remark and went on.
Dan Johnson's Alfa was similar to this one, seen here at the Monza Historic Festival in 2004. Photo
by Alessandro Gerelli.
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"As we go through this, think of weight being the enemy of performance, handling, and economy. The Alfa weighs in at a little over 2000 pounds dry."
"Let’s start with the engine. It's only 1300cc, or about 78 cubic inches---but it’s all about getting more from less by using relatively sophisticated—but far from new--methods. Most of this technology pre-dates WWI. The block, sump and head are aluminum, with steel cylinder liners. The rods are peened and polished, and the sump is a work of art, with all these little gates to keep oil from getting pushed around in a hard corner and under braking."
"How about the heads, does it have solid lifters like what I got on the Chevy?"
Johnson knew that he'd need one of the napkins to describe the valve arrangement on the Alfa, and drew a simple diagram of the two valves at an angle of 80 degrees, and the hemispherical combustion chamber, explaining that the shape of the chamber was much more efficient, and then drew in the Webers on one side of the head and the exhaust manifold on the other. He drew arrows from each throat of the Webers to the exhaust ports. "Easy in, easy out", said Johnson.
"Hell, the Chrysler had that on the hemi back in 1951."
"True, but they used pushrods and rockers to do the trick.
Alfa uses double overhead cams, saves a lot of weight by
reducing the number of parts in the valve train." He drew a
sketch.. "Alfa gets almost 100 horse power per liter-per 60 cubic inches- and it revs to 7 grand without breathing hard."
Okeefe jotted down some figures. "If this is true, if Alfa were to produce an engine the size of the Chevy, given the same output per liter, it would be kicking out around 470 horsepower!"
"On paper, maybe." Johnson didn't want Johnson to think he was just bragging about the Alfa. He recognized that the 283 was a superb design. "But remember, that small block Chevy 283 of yours is a truly great engine, and easily capable of 300 hp and more."
"There ain't no American double overhead cam engine, is there?"
"Well, the Meyer Drake Offenhauser is similar, but it is specifically a racing engine." Chalk one up for Indy.
Johnson went on to the transmission.
"Alfa uses an all synchromesh four speed transmission, with an aluminum case and floor shift. The bigger Alfas have five speed transmissions."
"Yeah, I’d like a floor shifter on the Chevy. That'd be cool. And a five speed box? Jees!"
"Our front suspensions are pretty similar, coil springs with unequal a arms, but that design was the brainstorm of Maurice Olley at Chevrolet back in the thirties, so we’ll call that a draw. Let’s go to the rear suspension."
Again, the napkins were deployed to illustrate the differences in the rear ends. They were both solid axles with a center differential unit.
"But look here," said Johnson. "Coil springs. Aluminum differential housing. And, lacking a good independent suspension, the next best thing is a well hung rear axle."
The napkin drawing indicated the two trailing links going forward on the chassis, and the triangular center support which prevented for and aft movement while allowing the axle to move up and down.
"Finally, the Alfa has Pirelli radial tires, which hold the road better than normal bias plies." Amazingly enough, Okeefe was still listening. Johnson knew that most of Okeefe's friends would simply blow this kind of stuff off.
"So now let's talk brakes. You don’t think much of having to stop out here in the plains. But between being used as racing cars and living near the Alps, Alfas need good brakes. There is an aluminum brake drum, with fins all the way around, and steel liners in the inside diameter. This cools the brakes, aided by the vented disc wheels, and reduces unsprung weight in the bargain. Most Alfas have only two leading shoes up front, but the new models will have three."
"Three leading shoes?"
"Yeah, three brake shoes instead of two, and each are set up to contact the drum via the wheel cylinder on the leading edge of the shoe." It was diagram time again.
"Now, I have to apologize-- this ain't the latest and greatest—disc brakes are—but I’ve heard that Alfa will have disc brakes on the next generation of cars. On all four wheels."
Okeefe had never heard of disc brakes or unsprung weight or radial tires but said nothing.
"The Alfa chassis is a unit frame construction, like the latest Chryslers. It’s cheaper to produce, stronger, and far more rigid than the combination of a frame and body. And the big prize is in the weight—much lighter, where weight is the enemy."
"Ok, that's great, but the thing still looks like a damn Karman Ghia." Johnson was always getting ribbed about the Alfa's lines.
"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I give you that. The styling is the result of a series of aerodynamic studies made by the bodybuilder, Bertone and Franco Scaglione early in the 1950s. The body style actually dates back to 1954, when the car first came out. It hasn't changed in six years. In Chevy terms, think of what the 1954 model looks like. Would you dare be seen in one today? I think not. So the Alfa has aged well. And in 1954 it was stunning."
Jack Okeefe took all of this in, slowly. The Alfa was like a car from outer space. Aside from four wheels, it seemed nothing at all like his Chevy.
"I guess I gotta give those Italians some credit. This thing is pretty well-engineered."
Obviously, now was not the time to tell Okeefe about Mussolini's pre war support for the Alfa Romeo factory and their work for the Axis war effort.
"So why doesn't Chevy make a car like this?"
"Maybe someday they will. The new Corvair uses many of the same engineering tricks, and has a independent rear suspension as well. And the Corvette is developing into a world class sportscar. No doubt the engineers in Detroit can do anything the rest of the world can do but aren’t allowed. It's expensive to produce. Detroit is in the business to make great money instead of great cars. Good for the economy. And that means we all get jobs, good jobs, right?"
Johnson gathered up the napkins, finished the last glass of wine, and thanked Okeefe for listening to him.
Johnson knew he hadn't changed Okeefe's mind. Jack’s friends and family wouldn't allow that. He paid the tab, settled into his Alfa Romeo Giulietta Sprint Veloce, and drove home.
Thirty years later—-a generation had passed. Jack Okeefe, still living in Des Moines, bought another new Chevy, trading in his 10 year old Suburban on a sports coupe called the Beretta GTZ. Jack's new car had all the latest and greatest options; disc brakes, alloy wheels, radial tires, a five speed transmission, a unit frame chassis, and the first production DOHC built by GM. The Cat's Meow, thought Jack. As he inspected his latest bow tie, Jack suddenly remembered, with a hint of displeasure, a college buddy named Johnson, who drove that funny Wop car way back in 1960.
