GTA alfa romeo

Inside the Walls of Autodelta Part 7: Le Mans, 1972

February 24, 2015 By pete

Story and photos by Robert Little
All images copyright Robert Little

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(Read Part 2)
(Read Part 3)
(Read Part 4)
(Read Part 5)
(Read Part 6)

Following the absolutely heart-breaking loss to a Ferrari 312P driven by Sandro Munari and Arturo Merzario by only a mere 17 seconds over the course of nearly 500 miles of the Sicilian countryside in the Targa Florio only weeks before, Ing. Chiti was even more determined to break the domination of the 312Ps and to take on all challengers to the 1972 World Championship for Makes title.

Unfortunately, a high stakes game of ‘cat and mouse’ ensued where Ferrari withdrew from Le Mans, Porsche did not enter a factory team, and Alfa Romeo Autodelta was facing 12 cylinder Matras, Cosworth-powered Lolas, Ligiers, a variety of French Ferrari dealer racing teams sporting Daytonas, the BF Goodrich Team of Chevrolet Corvettes, a couple DeTomaso Panteras and a vast plethora of privately-entered 908s, 911s.

The Autodelta team, sponsored by Alitalia, Shell, Goodyear and Koni brought three V-8 cars to the circuit along with a full and complete racing caravan of spare parts, a large Alfa Romeo autobus machining operation and a full staff…including the writer who was once again in charge of keeping the cars absolutely spotless, keeping the local Le Mans Alfa Romeo garage clean and guarding the assets of the company during off hours.

The FIA formula for the World Championship for Makes competition and this 1972 Twenty Four Hours of LeMans race specified that prototypes run with three-liter engines. The era of the magnificent 4.5-litre 917 in Le Mans was over, but a 908 long tail privately entered by Reinhold Joest turned heads. Joest, Mario Casoni and Michael Weber shared the car owned by Jo Siffert and scored third overall behind two factory entered Matra-Simca 670’s and a single Matra-Simca 660. The 908 benefited mainly from its sophisticated long-tail aerodynamics and low weight. Despite its substantially lower engine output compared to the works Matra-Simcas, the Porsche reached an identical top speed on the Mulsanne straight.

We enter the town of Le Mans...

The local Alfa Romeo authorized service facility in Le Mans kindly offered the use of its entire facilities to the Autodelta team. Note the Alfa sign on the building at right. Also peer closely on the left for a glimpse of the Alfa Romeo transporter in the process of unloading our three T-33 cars.

Combined with the Alfa Romeo machine-shop-autobus parked outside, this shop had every possible convenience required by the team to prepare the cars. Clean, well-lit, spacious enough to fit everything and relatively private. In the unlikely event that an emergency part or sub-assembly became necessary, the ride from Settimo Milanese to Le Mans was a relative short transit of perhaps six hours or so.

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Inside the Walls of Autodelta Part 6: At the Targa Florio

February 16, 2015 By pete

Story and Photos by Robert Little

(Read Part 1)
(Read Part 2)
(Read Part 3)
(Read Part 4)
(Read Part 5)

Dear Readers: I am pleased to open the door of history a tiny bit wider through the exposition of these images taken about 43 years ago. Please however remember the following:

The images themselves were captured on Kodak color slide film using a fine quality 35mm camera for the period. However, the pictures cannot be compared with the resolution quality found with today’s photographic equipment.

Secondly I hope you understand that as a worker for Ing. Chiti I had almost no opportunity to take photographs while “on duty” so many of the photographic opportunities during the many races I attended were lost to the fact that I was there to serve and not to photograph. My number of interesting images was restricted by this commitment. I hope you will enjoy the images I was able to capture and seek the true ‘atmospheric’ shots where they are to be found in commercially available books and magazines on the subject.

Meeting the Autodelta Team in Sicily for the Targa Florio

After arriving in Sicily (Read Part 5), I met up with the Autodelta team, who had rented garage space from the Motel Aurim in Cerda. As the lowest member of the Autodelta ‘totem pole’, I was responsible for keeping all of the cars in spotless condition during the season, so that history would record every Autodelta car looking its absolute fastest and shiny best at the track appearances and in all future photographs.

For the actual race I was stationed somewhere along the course in the mountains. equipped with front and rear spare tires, fuel, a few tools, gasoline, coolant and a large Alfa Romeo sign board to represent an assistance point for drivers.

Evocative; a scene which could only be from the Targa Florio. This is the Vic Elford/Van Lennep Alfa being fueled up.

One of Carlo Chiti’s Darkest Moments: The 1972 Targa Florio

Autodelta had made a major concerted effort to win here and threw the entire weight and prestige of the parent company behind this effort, under the assumption that Ferrari would not bother to enter the race, having a good lead in the World Manufacturer’s Championship. However, at the last minute, Ferrari entered a 312P to be driven by Arturo Merzario and Sandro Munari. Still with four cars entered for Vaccarella/Stommelen, Elford/Van Lennep, de Adamich/ Hezemans and Nanni Galli/Helmut Marko, Chiti was confident of a win.

I had been driving the circuit fairly quickly in my Giulia 1600 with my camera on the passenger seat...it was all I could do to avoid clipping this Ferrari 312P coming toward me at full speed while at the same moment capturing this image. The one car entry took Autodelta by surprise.

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Inside Autodelta Part 5

February 10, 2015 By pete

Story and photos by Robert Little

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(Read Part 2)
(Read Part 3)
(Read Part 4)
(Read Part 6)
(Read Part 7)

Treasures in the Dumpsters and on to the Targa

“Welcome back to “Inside the Walls” Part Five. I hope you have been enjoying it as much as I have delighted in sharing it with all of you. Now it is starting to get even more interesting.

The year 1972 became the most exciting period of my entire automobile racing life…travelling to Autodelta and a short time later witnessing and participating in several of the great moments in modern day Alfa Romeo racing history; the Targa Florio – where we lost by a mere 17 seconds over about 490 miles of twisting, circuitous Sicilian countryside; the epic struggle to capture the 24 Hours of Le Mans; the secret preparation of the new 33TT12 at Balocco; the 12 Hours of Sebring, the Six Hours of Daytona and the 500 Kilometers of Imola at the Circuit Dino Ferrari. Whew! What a year!

But for now, let’s take a short and final look at another area of Autodelta…the customer vehicle area and prepare ourselves for the long drive from Milano to the shores of Sicily where the Autodelta team had already established itself in the tiny village of Cerda for early testing.

And next week you will be given a front row seat for the Targa Florio and Le Mans.”

“Alfa Romeo. Racing Since 1911”.

Andiamo!

Archive parts storage area and customer GTA and GTV Rally preparation area. Chiti's white Berlina and Ing. Garbarino's Berlina are pictured in this area where new vehicles were delivered from Arese for disassembly, all non-essential parts being removed here. Lots of interesting items in rafter storage - including sets of Firestone tires made outmoded by new Goodyear contractual obligations - but retained for eventual historical reconstitution of early cars at some later date. Some early T-33 chassis are seen stored away in the upper left corner of the photograph.

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Inside the Walls of Autodelta Part 4

February 3, 2015 By pete

Story and photos by Robert Little

(Read Part 1)
(Read Part 2)
(Read Part 3)

Constructing the World Famous 33TT12 Chassis and body

“Descendants of the Italian Renaissance”

The very heart of race car fabrication are the artisans who mold and shape raw materials with their bare hands …transforming metal into valuable and highly unique works of art; all in a day’s work for these exceptionally skilled individuals.

This segment of “Inside the Walls” goes to the very core of Autodelta – featuring those men I choose to term “the true Descendants of the Italian Renaissance” – creating some of the most emotionally captivating and fastest moving pieces of art we as mere mortals have ever seen.

The photographs you are about to see are among my most highly treasured, recapturing the hours, days and weeks spent on the shop floor with these men, who were entrusted by Ing. Chiti to execute his aspirations to perfection.

And that they did.

In fact this entire website series “Inside the Walls” has been dedicated to those men and their legacy.

Beginning the process of constructing the T-33 is the physical transfer of the tubular chassis fabricated by next door neighbor Aletti and parting a leather curtain between the wall of the two adjoining firms and carrying the chassis through the wall to the Autodelta carrozzeria area. I had only seen it done once and was not in a position at that moment to get my camera and record the actual birth of the 105.33 chassis…much like, perhaps the fumbling that goes on in advance of the birth of a child.

I simply wasn’t ready. I missed it.

Everything else you will see was captured exactly as it occurred 43 years ago.

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Inside Autodelta Part 3

January 27, 2015 By pete

By Robert Little
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(Read Part 2)

Settling in at Autodelta

After a short time, I settled into my new duties at Autodelta. I became the resident “Americano” who walked around learning the construction and assembly processes while becoming a friend to the mechanics. I also served as a type of exchange student to some of their families, who would invite me over to their homes for dinner.

That small door on the left side of the image with the circle and cross on it was known to others as the ‘Infirmaria’ but was known to me as my 'bedroom' for a short period of time in 1972. Photo copyright Robert Little

I arrived at a time of intense work and increased growth as well as competition, and Chiti needed to put his best foot forward. I believe Ing. Chiti came to recognize that team managers such as Roger Penske and Luca di Montezemolo of Ferrari were transforming the image of international racing, and raising the bar of meticulous appearance of the cars in much the same way that they had lifted the bar in their approach to the mechanical preparation of their cars.

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Inside the Walls of Autodelta, Part 2

January 20, 2015 By pete

(Read Part 1)

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.

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Inside the Walls of Autodelta, Part 1

January 13, 2015 By pete

Robert Little contacted VeloceToday recently and asked if we’d be interested in re-publishing his historic photos and descriptions of Autodelta, taken in the early 1970s, which had previously appeared in the “Alfa Owner” and now on his own website, of which he says “The new name is www.AutodeltaGoldenYears.com and I will continue to use www.RobertLittle.US at the same time for the next few years.”

We jumped at the opportunity; the photos and his story are unique and of great interest and value. “It’s actually quite an amazing and true story – one that has not been known to have been repeated in the history of Italian motor racing. Looking back one finds it difficult to believe it actually happened as it did…” wrote Mr. Little. This Introduction explains how his magical sojourn came about; the rest of the chapters will concentrate on his amazing photographic record of Autodelta at its prime.

By Robert Little

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(Read Part 6)
(Read Part 7)

A native Detroiter and son of a Chrysler Corporation engineer, I grew up helping my father in the garage. We built five Soap Box Derby cars for the annual Detroit races and together we restored a 1922 Model T Ford coupe.

My interests eventually diverged with the acquisition of my Michigan driver’s license, and spent weekends as a volunteer at the Waterford Hills (Michigan) race track. There, it was obvious that small nimble lightweight automobiles could run circles around heavier, over-powered/under braked “Detroit Iron”…and found that Alfa Romeo vehicles came factory-equipped with superior handling and braking characteristics.

Entering college in the fall of 1968, I co-founded the Michigan State University Sports Car Club (which incidentally grew to become the second largest such college car club among American universities behind the UCLA club), and after four years and some intensely-Alfa Romeo summers, graduated with a B.A. in Mass Communication and Marketing.

I joined the Alfa Romeo Owner’s Club and met Tom Tann and Joe Benson (author of the still famous Illustrated Alfa Romeo Buyer’s Guide). At the time, they co-owned a blue Alfa Romeo TZ-1. In 1970 Tom and I decided to drive it to Sebring, Florida in a 24 hour non-stop run. I had been invited to be a Pit Marshal for Alec Ulmann’s organization, assigned to the Autodelta team pit area, of course! There, we met members of the Autodelta team and acquaintances developed.

In the pits with the Autodelta T33 at Sebring in 1970. Photo copyright Robert Little.

With one Sebring 12 Hours under my belt and watching Steve McQueen, Jackie Ickx, Vic Elford and other world-class masters grind it out for the Twelve Hours, I became hooked on the thought of someday becoming a part of the World Championship-of-Makes level of competition – in my opinion, the most exciting and thrilling world-class level of automobile competition. In those days it was the national prestige of the entire Italian nation battling Germany, France, and England for honor and world domination…without the visual clutter of unnecessarily high levels of commercialization. And in the case of Italy, it was purely Ferrari versus Alfa Romeo….Enzo Ferrari versus Carlo Chiti. [Read more…] about Inside the Walls of Autodelta, Part 1