Alfa Romeo Tipo 103
| Alfa Romeo | |
|---|---|
Alfa Romeo Tipo 103 in the Alfa factory museum |
|
| Tipo 103 | |
| Presentation year: | 1960 |
| Vehicle fair: | |
| Class : | Small car |
| Body shape : | limousine |
| Engine: |
Otto engine : 0.9 liters (52 hp) |
| Length: | 3630 mm |
| Width: | 1500 mm |
| Height: | 1300 mm |
| Wheelbase: | 2230 mm |
| Empty weight: | 725 kg |
| Production model: | none |
Under the project name Tipo 103 , the Italian automobile manufacturer Alfa Romeo developed a small car in the late 1950s that was to establish the company as a large-scale manufacturer. The Tipo 103 had some design features that were very innovative at the time, such as a transverse engine and front-wheel drive. Series production ultimately did not materialize for economic reasons. The Tipo 103 is considered to be the conceptual forerunner of the Alfasud, which was introduced ten years later .
background
Until the outbreak of World War II, Alfa Romeo had been a manufacturer of high-priced sports cars serving the upper-class market segment. After the end of the war, the company management decided to reposition the brand, which began in 1950 with the Alfa Romeo 1900 , a sporty, upper mid-range sedan that had a standardized, self-supporting body at the factory and was only half as expensive as the exclusive pre-war vehicles. 1954 appeared with the Giulietta the first Alfa Romeo, which was conceived directly as a middle class model. Impressed by the success that the even smaller Fiat 600 had in the Italian market, in the late 1950s, Alfa Romeo initially considered, in keeping with the fashion of the time, adding a sporty small car with a rear-engined engine to the Giulietta. A small rear-wheel drive car (Tipo 13-61) was then built by 1958 under the direction of Rudolf Hruska and Giuseppe Busso . After the first prototype of this model had been built in 1958, the company's management decided against the continuation of project 13-61. This decision was related to the presentation of the Mini developed by Alec Issigonis , whose space-saving combination of transverse front engine and front-wheel drive represented a milestone in automobile design and was perceived as a concept of the future. From 1959, Alfa Romeo's engineers developed a small car that followed the design principles of the Mini.
In 1960 the first prototype of this model, called Tipo 103, was created, which according to some sources was followed by a second in 1962. Until 1962, Alfa Romeo undertook numerous test drives with the Tipo 103. Notwithstanding the supposedly convincing results of these tests, Alfa Romeo ultimately decided against series production of the Tipo 103 for economic reasons, as it was said that larger profits could be achieved with models in the middle and upper middle class ; some sources also point to an alleged informal division of the Italian automobile market between Fiat and Alfa Romeo, which would have become irrelevant if the 103 had been mass-produced.
The concept of the compact front-wheel drive vehicle was only taken up again a decade later with the Alfasud, the development and production of which received considerable government funding. Regardless of this, the body of the 103 influenced several series vehicles presented later.
technology
The Tipo 103 was a 3.6 m long small car with a self-supporting body. The drive was a four-cylinder in-line engine with 0.9 liter displacement, which was installed transversely at the front. Its power was given as 52 hp. The power was transmitted to the front wheels via a fully synchronized four-speed gearbox. The maximum speed during test drives was 139 km / h.
The body was designed as a four-door notchback sedan. The structure was straight, the rear doors ended in front of the wheel cutouts. Renault adopted the basic concept of the body for the R 8 presented in 1962 , which, however, had an engine at the rear. The rear section of the Tipo 103 had a trunk lid lowered in the middle and rear lights arranged across it. Alfa Romeo adopted this design concept with only minor changes for the Giulietta successor Giulia , which came onto the market in 1962.
The curb weight of the vehicle was 725 kg.
literature
- Georg Amtmann, Halwart Schrader: Italian sports cars. Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-613-01988-4 .
- Stefan Heins: Southern fruits. 30 years of Alfa Romeo Alfasud. In: Oldtimer Markt , issue 10/2002, pp. 188 ff.
Web links
- The Alfa Romeo 103 on the website www.carfolio.com (accessed on September 2, 2014)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Regardless of this, numerous Italian body manufacturers offered individualized bodies based on the 1900 technology, and Alfa Romeo also designed several special versions with 1900 technology.
- ↑ Stefan Heins: Southern fruits. 30 years of Alfa Romeo Alfasud. In: Oldtimer Markt, issue 10/2002, p. 192.