By Robert Little
The photographs you are about to see are the only images known to privately or publicly exist of the inside of Autodelta taken since 1967. Not even the factory, nor the Alfa Romeo Museo Storico has any images inside the high walls of the Autodelta factory, nor has any Alfa Romeo S.p.A. employee ever seen these images…until now. All materials are under the copyright protection of the Bern Convention. All Rights Reserved.
Via Enrico Fermi 7, Settimo Milanese
As related in the Introduction, in 1972 I abruptly left Michigan State in my senior year and hopped a Milan-bound British Overseas Airlines flight. After a long and fairly expensive taxi drive, I finally reached the tiny farming hamlet of Settimo Milanese, the rural area chosen by Alfa Romeo S.p.A. for its walled compound, located in what was at the time a rural farming community in a distant suburb of Milano.
Above: The agrarian surroundings of Settimo Milanese as taken from the neighboring village of Baggio; Via Enrico Fermi served as a busy passageway for local farmers tending their flocks while passing the employee parking lot of Autodelta in the 1960s and 1970s. Years of political struggle in Italy between the Communist Party, Socialists, Democratic Libertarians and the strong labor union movement caused labor strife throughout the country, but did not seem to affect the production of Autodelta and it’s relatively highly-paid workers…who would see freshly painted political slogans and ‘manifesti’ on the outer walls.
The Autodelta compound is shown to the right side of the small tubular fabrication shop 'Aletti' visible on the extreme left.
