Categories: Automobile

The Alfa Romeo Alfetta’s Fugly Dashboard Was Unusually Prophetic

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Ever get the sensation that some outdated vehicles get manner an excessive amount of publicity, whereas others are unfairly missed? I do, and I reckon Alfa Romeo’s Alfetta deserves some critical highlight time. Not solely as a result of it’s nice worth and handles fantastically because it shares a drivetrain format with a Ferrari, however as a result of its unusually mutated dashboard design was years forward of its time.

A fast historical past lesson: the 1972 Alfetta sedan and 1974 coupe changed the basic 105/115-series Giulia sedan and coupe of the Sixties and early Seventies, and took their title from the profitable Fifties Tipo 159 Alfetta grand prix race vehicles. Just like the racers, the Alfettas (sure, even the sedan) had their engines mounted on the entrance and their transmissions positioned on the again for improved weight distribution, a format Ferrari had adopted on the 275 GTB of 1964, and nonetheless employs on its present front-engined vehicles.

Ask 100 folks and 99 will inform you the older Giulia, the one Alfaholics’ GTA-R relies on, is the prettier automobile, however I believe the Alfetta GT coupe seems to be equally good-looking, however differently, very like you possibly can dig each a Lamborghini Miura and the radically completely different Countach that changed it. And right here’s one thing which may make the newer automobile look immediately extra interesting: Hagerty Insurance coverage says you’ll pay $46,800 for the older-style 2.0-liter GTV in good situation, however solely $9,400 for the newer mannequin.

Design Developments: Straked Wheels, Are You A Fan?

Later Alfetta coupes (which truly dropped the Alfetta title in favor of Dash Veloce after which GTV) bought the choice of Alfa’s beautiful Busso V6, however additionally they bought ugly plastic bumpers. I desire the look of the early European market vehicles with their twin-cam four-cylinder engines, slim, chrome bumpers, and really bizarre dashboards.

There’s some logic to the weirdness. This being an outdated Alfa, and so a real driver’s automobile, the one gauge straight forward of the driving force is a rev counter. That’s it. All the opposite superfluous stuff just like the speedo and gasoline gauge is manner over within the middle of the dashboard in a separate, a lot bigger binnacle.

For sensible, authorized street driving it’s an ergonomic catastrophe, and for years I assumed it was fairly hideous. However trying on the form and format of these gauge packs it’s not possible to not see similarities with a contemporary automobile just like the Volkswagen ID.4 SUV, or any variety of vehicles constructed within the final 10 years fitted with tablet-style touchscreens, such because the Citroën C4 Cactus. Even the sliding heater controls beneath the Alfa’s middle pod appear to be those on the Volkswagen.

If you happen to fancy a slice of bizarrely prophetic and under-appreciated Alfa Romeo dashboard design for your self with simply 39,854 miles (64,136 km) on these oddball clocks, the fabulously authentic Italian-market 1975 Alfetta GT 1800 seen right here is up for public sale with Automobile & Traditional.