Just like the Simca 1000 that we hoisted onto the podium last week, the Alfa Romeo Alfasud has become rare quite quickly, mainly because of the rust devil. However, this green one has survived to date and for that reason alone deserves to draw all the attention to itself.
It seemed such a tight plan: to give the economy of southern Italy a boost by building Alfa Romeos there. Under pressure from the Italian government, that is exactly what happened and Alfa Romeo christened the model that was going to roll off the production line ‘Alfasud’, which roughly translated for ‘the Alfa from the south’. However, there was a small problem: the new factory near Naples was quite close to the sea. The Alfasuds, made of not exactly high-quality steel, did not get any better from the salty air in which they stood (often even outside) waiting for their coating. Alfasuds became notorious for rust and that is a shame, because it was a nice model. The Alfasud had a road holding that garnered much praise and the fairly spicy boxer engines in the nose made it a car full of character.
Over the years, work was done to make the Alfasuds more rust resistant. It is therefore not very surprising that the majority of the Alfasuds remaining in the Netherlands come from recent years. Of course, age also plays a role. This green copy is also a rather ‘late’ copy, from 1981 to be precise. You can see that in the exuberant use of dark plastic and the larger headlights with pretty hefty orange flashing lights next to them.
On the tailgate of this Alfasud, which was spotted by colleague Rik Werner, is the famous ‘Ti’ badge. It doesn’t belong on it, so it’s not as much of a party as you might think. The Alfasud Ti was a three-door and it had a spicier version of the 1.5 than this one. This is good for 85 hp, in the then Ti (which had an extra carburettor) the 1.5 stamped 95 hp.
That’s not the only thing that doesn’t originally belong on this ‘Sud. According to the registration data, it is a white copy, so the green lacquer came on later. Incidentally, it seems that the newer coating now also deserves some attention. Oh well, it shouldn’t spoil the fun, an Alfasud makes us happy anyway. This is also only due to its second owner, who bought the car two years ago from the person who bought it new here in the Netherlands in 1981. Nice!
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl