Alfa Romeo GTA

Alfa Romeo GTA
Manufacturer:	Alfa Romeo
Class:	front-engined coupe
Production:	1962- 1971
Predecessor:	Giulietta Coupé
Successor:
Body styles:	coupé
Engines:	1570 cc

The Alfa Romeo GTA was a coupé automobile manufactured by the Italian manufacturer Alfa Romeo from 1962 to 1971.

In 1962, the successor for the very popular Giulietta Coupé, internally called the "Series 105", was introduced. It used the shortened floorpan from the Giulia Berlina car and was designed by Bertone. The name of the car evolved from Giulia Sprint GT to Giulia Sprint and to GTJ (Junior) and GTV (Veloce) in the late 1960s.

At the time, Alfa was very active in motorsport. Autodelta, the racing division of Alfa, developed a car for competition close to the roadgoing model. These cars were named GTA instead of GT, the 'A' standing for "Allegerita", Italian for lightweight.

Using lots of aluminium panels and by fitting a new 8-spark plug (twin spark, twin plug) cylinderhead, this car boasted 170bhp in the 1300cc car and up to 240bhp in the 2000cc car - A car usually related to the GTA but unlike the GTA derived from the GTV 1750, the 2000GTAm was created in 1968: There are 2 schools of thought about the "Am", neither one of them ever being confirmed by the factory: one says Allegerita Maggiorata, the other America. Most likely the latter is closest, since the car did not contain any aluminum parts and therefore not "Allegerita", and the base was a GTV 1750 with American injection system for homologation purposes for the American market. Spica was the injection system brand. The 1750 cc was later bored to 1985 cc to meet the 2000 cc limitation of its class to the maximum. Both types the GTA/ GTA 1300 Junior and the GTAm were very successful, these cars were lead to numerous victories. In the opening season at Monza, they won the first seven places. Andrea de Adamich claimed the title in 1966. Later on, the 1750 GTAm and the 2000 GTAm cars were lead to victory by Toine Hezemans, who won the 24 hours of Francorchamps with this car. These cars won hundreds of races before competition grew stronger in 1971. But the Giulia sometimes kept up with much bigger engined cars such as the 3 litre CSL BMW's.

GTA 1300 Junior

Alfa Romeo GTA Junior
Production	1968–1972
Body style	2-door coupe
Engine	1.3 L straight-4

The GTA 1300 Junior (1968–1972) had an 1300 cc engine that was based on the 1600 engine but with a short stroke crankshaft. The GTA Junior in stradale form did not have many of the light weight features of the 1600 GTA, such as the plastic windows, magnesium engine components and alloy wheels. At start the engine produced 96PS but was soon raised to 110PS. Autodelta prepared fuel injected racing cars had 165PS. 450 GTA Juniors were produced.

GTAm

Alfa Romeo GTAm
Production	1970–1971
Body style	2-door coupe
Engine	2.0 L straight-4

The GTAm (1970–1971) could produce up to 240PS in the 2000 cc car—a car usually related to the GTA, but unlike the GTA derived from the GTV 1750, the 2000GTAm was created in 1968: There are two schools of thought about the "Am", neither one of them ever being confirmed by the factory: one says Alleggerita Maggiorata ("lightned enlarged", in Italian), the other America Maggiorata. Most likely the latter is closest, since the car body did not contain any aluminum part and therefore was not "Allegerita", and the base was a GTV 1750 with American injection system for homologation purposes for the American market. SPICA was the injection system brand. The 1750 (actually 1779 cc) was bored to 1985 cc to meet the 2000 cc limitation of its class to the maximum, so explaining what "maggiorata" stands for.

GTA-SA

Alfa Romeo GTA-SA
Production	1967–1968
Body style	2-door coupe
Engine	1.6 L straight-4 supercharged

The Giulia 1600 GTA-SA (sovralimentato or supercharged) (1967–1968) was very rare racing car, which was built only 10 copies. Car featured 1570 cc twinspark engine with two oildriven superchargers and it could produce up to 250 PS at 7500 rpm. The GTA-SA was built for FlA Group 5 racing in Europe and it won first place overall in the Hockenheim 100 mile endurance race in 1967 in the hands of the German driver Siegfried Dau.

Racing success

Both types the GTA/ GTA 1300 Junior and the GTAm were very successful, these cars were led to numerous victories. In the opening season at Monza, they won the first seven places. Andrea de Adamich claimed the title in 1966. Later on, the 1750 GTAm and the 2000 GTAm cars were led to victory by Toine Hezemans, who won the 24 hours of Francorchamps with this car. These cars won hundreds of races before competition grew stronger in 1971. But the Giulia sometimes kept up with much bigger engined cars such as the 3 litre BMW CSL.

Modern Alfa Romeos

The designation GTA is now used on the highest performance versions of Alfa Romeo road cars, such as the 147 and now discontinued 156. These cars are powered by V6 engines giving them the most power of the cars in the model range, however despite the GTA name, they are generally the heaviest cars in the range, due to having large engines and little if any weight saving empolyed in their construction.

External links

• The Alfa Romeo car company

References

• Alfa Romeo Alleggerita Giulia Sprint GTA, Tony Adriaensens, ISBN 90-801197-1-7
• Alfa Romeo Giulia Coupe GT and GTA, John Tipler, ISBN 1-903706-47-5

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Video Links

Alfa Romeo Giulia GTA, GTV 1750, GTV 1300 Jr.