Review by Pete Vack
Alfa Romeo Giulia
528 pages, 418 black and white photographs and 69 colour photographs. Size: 25,7 x 22,9 cm Weight: 2,5 kg
Language: English – German
Author: Patrick Dasse
ISBN 978-3-87166-166-2
€119.00
Order here
The neighbors politely asked if we could keep it behind closed garage doors when not in use. Our relatives asked us to park a street away when we visited. At work, co-workers offered to create a special car pool so that it would not have to be parked it in the company parking lot. When it snowed, kids threw snowballs at it, when it didn’t, dogs barked at it. Valets refused to park it or even get in, lest their reputation be damaged.
Surely we jest, right? To a degree.
But even those fanatic foriegn car magazines like Road & Track could not help but comment. June 1965, second paragraph if their road test: “In appearance, the TI won’t win any beauty prizes. It is boxy, square at all corners and it has more of the looks of one of the workaday medium size Fiats than the sleek sexiness we ordinarily expect attached to the Alfa emblem.” In another road test in February 1968, second sentence: ”It’s nothing much in the way of pretty, what with slab sides and boxy lines…” Neighboring magazine Sports Car Graphic got right to the point as well in September of 1967. “The trim, elegant, practical and non dating lines of this two plus two have turned [the GTV] into the best selling Alfa in many markets, the more so because the company’s bread and butter car, the TI sedan, is no beauty.” In 1966 SCG tested the Super and wrote “Alfa designers claim a lot of aerodynamic research went into the body design: At first glance this almost seems a chuckle. Like how aerodynamic ‘can a brick be?” As far as we can determine, Car and Driver did not stoop to test the new Giulia sedan; god knows what they would have written!
Never has so much been lost in search of a few cd numbers. An entire market perhaps. (Real numbers: The Giulia sedan has a drag coefficient of .034; the Maserati Ghibli .035, and the Porsche 911 .034, as quoted in the book, Alfa Romeo Giulia, History and Restoration by Pat Braden and Jim Weber.)
On the other hand. We owned at least two Giulia sedans and of the countless Alfas we bought and drove daily, they were overall, the most satisfying Alfas of all. In fact, we loved them. To most the looks were just confusing, different, hard to understand and certainly not within the realm of ordinary experience. Who cared about cd factors and gas mileage at time of 50 cents a gallon gas, the advent of A/C for all, and an overriding national passion for muscle cars? Who could even bother to try to understand the Giulia in a land of wide open superhighways and traffic jammed city streets?
So concentrate on the interior: The Super was Super and the interior surpassed the competition of Lotus Cortina and BMW, even if performance did not.
Patrick Dasse’s tome on the 105 Giulia, one of seven (eight if one include a volume about the Arese factory) books chronicling the 105 Alfas, gets us going. It’s a bit like the Giulia sedan itself, boxy on the outside, the treasure inside hidden, the incredible package beyond the realm of the ordinary. Insofar as contents and scope, we are happy to quote from the book:
This book focuses exclusively on the various model variants of the saloon bodied Giulia from the Tipo 105 series mounting 1300cc and 1600cc engines.The 528 pages contain solely contemporary photographs, which for the most part are published here for the first time, documenting the different variants of the model. In the respective chapters the modifications to the cars that Alfa Romeo made over the years are documented in detail for each model.
The documentation covers the following models produced by Alfa Romeo between 1962 and 1977 in Portello and Arese:
Tipo 105.14 Giulia TI
Tipo 105.08 Giulia TI
Tipo 105.16 Giulia TI Super
Tipo 105.06 Giulia 1300
Tipo 105.26 Giulia Super / Giulia Super 1.6 / Nuova Super 1600
Tipo 105.39 Giulia 1300 TI
Tipo 105.85 Giulia 1600S
Tipo 115.09 Giulia 1300 Super / Giulia Super 1.3 / Nuova Super 1300
Tipo 115.40 Nuova Super Diesel
So thats a lot of models, growing the Giulia book to roughly twice the size of the other books. And while the photos are prodigous and necessary for determining the differences and details, Dasse also provides a list of changes. Below is a very incomplete list of the differences between an example model:
To be able to offer the new car at an attractive price, the model specification was lowered in numerous areas compared to the
Giulia TI. These changes kept the production costs low, but also created a discernible gap between the model and the Giulia TI.
Amongst other differences, the Tipo 105.06 Giulia 1300 could be
differentiated from the Tlpo 105.08 Giulia TI by the following:
• Four speed as opposed to a five speed gearbox
• Lack of brake servo
• Only one headlight on each side
• Lack of bumper overriders
• Front indicators without chrome bar or chrome bezel
• Chrome strip on the bonnet absent
• Lack of chrome strip along the rain rail
• The chrome strip on the A-pillar was replaced by a strip in matching body colour
• lack of chrome trim on the windscreen cow!
• Hub caps with embossed Alfa Romeo crest in the centre, without decorative black plastic ring
And may we present just a few of the over 400 photos in the book. Alfa lovers, rejoice.
One of the several prototypes built in 1961 and licensed for the road. Would the average Italian have guessed that this was the new Alfa?
A pre-production car from late 1961. The fussy chrome around the taillights made it into production, for while. Nomenclature would be fussy too, here a Giulia 1600 TI would do.
Early production cars had script in large letters on the dash, but the ‘1600’ had disappeared.
The prime mover and shaker, Orazio Satta Puliga, with the new Giulia.
The new Giulia was shown at the Turin Auto Show, November 1962.
Dasse includes the rare ones too, from the Police versions to the Peking Raid cars to the rare Colli station wagon, above.
Throughout the Alfa archives are nice little nuggets. Dasse explains that this 1965 TI was the millionth car registered in the city of Milan, hence the license plate MI A0 0000. He also notes that the VIN was 438519.
A Colli wagon liveried for the French importer.
The 1300 series at Monza in May of 1964. There would be a number of 1300 variants,
Tipo 105.85, the Giulia 1600 S as it evolved in 1968-69.
The Nuova Super 1300 from 1974. The front end treatment was not an improvement.
Read the other reviews of this fantastic series so far. Next up, the GTV.
Read Review of Book 1: Berlina
Read Review of Book 2: RHD Alfas
Read Review of Book 3: Junior Zagato Alfas
I think I am one of the few remaining Giulia owners who have not purchased this book. I wish it cost less, but it looks like it is well worth it and time for me to bite the bullet.
This is such a great series of books and really nails a lot of the detail differences that are nowhere else recorded but in the heads of specialists.
Myself I have an unrestored Nov ’62 TI that is just like the one in the Nov ’62 Torino Motor Show picture in the article.
Still with bench seat, drum brakes all round (3 shoes and aluminum drums in front!) 5 gears and column shift. Compared to generation competitors it was decades ahead of its time! It still is a car that can run with every day traffic and I am so proud to be the custodian of this piece of unique history.
I wish that they made a modern version. A pal at college used to drive one – his dad was a serious Alfa aficionado. Btw would Car and Driver have been so sniffy about the looks? I recall that Mr David E Davis had a penchant for the BMW 1600, and also had curious stuff like a Steyr Puch Haflinger in his garage.
Wow, makes me regret not having bought one when they were still frowned upon a decade or so ago. But this says it all: “Real numbers: The Giulia sedan has a drag coefficient of .034; the Maserati Ghibli .035, and the Porsche 911 .034, as quoted in the book, Alfa Romeo Giulia, History and Restoration by Pat Braden and Jim Weber.” Enough said.
I bought my first Super, new in Vancouver in 1968 that with 10:1 pistons went rather well. I had had a 101 Spider and Sprint as daily drivers and bought the Super as a “stealth” car, which it was. But most thought it ugly and I would counter with “Form follows function”, which was hopeless and gave up with the comment that when I was inside enjoying the ride, I could not see the outside.
In nine years it rusted out, then drove an Alfetta Sports Sedan for 18 years.
Then in 2005 bought a 101 Spider and Sprint, then a 67 Super. All very good examples and the Super’s “Rosso” was very good.
Then, ironically in driving them around the Super got the most attention.
Sigh,
Bob
I have a Type 105.16 1964 Ti Super and they are truly wonderful cars. 501 were produced in 63/64 until the GTA arrived in order to homologate the car for racing. The Ti Super had a 1600cc DOHC with twin 45 Webers, magnesium wheels, four wheel disc brakes, a five speed, plexiglass windows and a lightweight Zagato designed interior. Truly the first of the sports sedans and while ultimately it was too heavy to beat the Lotus Cortinas one did finish fifth overall at the Tour de France and 2nd st the 1965 Spa 24hrs.
As most were raced in period few survive today; truly a superb design.
I had a real Ti super for a number of years and enjoyed every mile , I found it livelier than a BMW 2002
I had a Giulia TI Super. When I bought it from a notorious Southern Cal Alfa mechanic it had a freshly broken in modified 1600 engine. I had the suspension completely gone through as well just for fun.
One night I was leaving the bar in San Anselmo where Huey Lewis was the bar band. I sat in the lot and warmed the engine through, snicked it in gear and took off. Perhaps just a little too spiritedly. When I reached the sweeping left hand corner leading to the 101 overpass I was going 50mph or so. Down shifted, a little heel and toe, a little drift and correct on those skinny Pirelli tires, nailed it up and over. On the long descent was cooling it a bit, the corners being the most fun, when the red lights came up behind me down the overpass.
Ohoh. It’s on 1 am, they probably saw me leave the bar. Ohoh.
I pull over waiting for my fate, roll the window down. The towny cop comes up sticks his hand in my window to shake mine and announces, “You just won me fifty bucks!”
“My partner bet me fifty bucks there was no way you were going to make it through that corner at that speed.
“Thanks! have a good one!” He said, waving over his shoulder walking back to the Squad.
And they were gone.
Ah the Seventies…
Jeff, I think you summed up the difference between the 2002 and Giulia in one word….livelier. And that made all the difference.
Pete
I’ve had five of these “butter boxes”, as a female friend called them, actually only three, but two of them twice…After nearly 30 years, I still have my late 1300TI with a warm 2 litre in it. I call it my hooligan car slightly lowered, on standard 5.5” rims with hubcaps. Very few cars of the 60s drive as well as these. It will be the last to leave.