Alfa Romeo Giulia: the brilliant original (1962-1978)

Posted on 10-07-2015 at 19:34 by Dizono – 75 Comments”

The ’60s were the heyday of the affordable sports cars, but also for those of four doors needed was a sports car: the Alfa Romeo Giulia. This sporty sedan rolled of the band between 1962 and 1978, and served also as a basis for a variety of sports cars that make it in the ’90s continued.

Although the little Alfa Romeo Giulietta is the basis of some magnificent cars, such as the Giuliatta Sprint, and, if possible, even more beautiful Sprint speciale, is the sedannetje itself is nothing special. The styling is typical of the ’50s, with a touch of pontoon and traces of wings on the back, but sporty or elegant looks of the Giulietta actually is not.

Giulia: the four-door sports car
That changes when Alfa Romeo in 1962, the cloth pulls of the Giulia. This will replace the Giulietta, but is slightly bigger than its predecessor. Big is also relative, because a Giulia compared to today’s cars downright small. Thanks to the basic simple and angular design, is the interior very pretty. Only for the average Hollander is a bit harder to make a fine driving position behind the steering wheel, this car is clearly designed for the smaller Italian. Otherwise than by its boxy look would expect, the Giulia a better streamline than the 911 of those days.

From the outside a neat sedan, under the skin of a real sports car

The design should of a distance than pretty rechtoe-forward, the beauty is in the detail. Look at that fine line where normal stootlijsten, which extends through the rear wielkastrand. Or the stunning rear door with ‘dent’. Or the thin bumpers and the four careful eye headlights. The interior is equally classic and stylish, with standard an attractive wooden steering wheel deep hub and gauges and counters that are also in the for the export referred to cars just ‘olio’ and ‘aqua’ as the caption.

Under the hood of the Giulia you will find either a 1300, with between 80 and 88 hp, or a 1600 with 95-112 hp. On a car weight of less than 1000 pounds could and you can enjoy sporty driving with an Alfa Romeo Giulia. Especially in combination with dual Webers and a custom uitlaatpijpje sounds so’n Nord-block is great, but also with dual Solexes or dell’orto’s sounds better than many sports car of today.

Yes, the Giulia is a real Italian…

Giulia TI Super

The most sought after Giulia is without doubt the TI Super from 1963 (top photo). This had the 1600-block with 112 hp and was actually a homologatiemodel. There were only 501 copies were built. Remarkably for a car of its time were the disc brakes all around, something even later, by default, would be on each of the Giulia, like a vijfbak.

Nuova Giulia

In 1974, will receive the Giulia still a last fountain of youth before the model in 1978, out of production. This Nuova Giulia is identified by the black plastic grille with four headlights of the same size, the distinctive dent in the rear door is due to expire. Also, the interior is refreshed, now with a true center console. More striking than the changes to the interior and the exterior, is the introduction of a diesel engine. This little civilized Perkins-dieseltje with 55 hp does the sporty character of the Giulia anything but honor. Only ca. 6500 copies were built, of which there are now only few are left. Lest we never forget.

The Alfa Romeo Nuova Giulia, does not have the typical dent in the trunk

Originality hoéft not

Especially to the Alpha world is that -unlike with many other brands – there is not much value attached to originality. Actually, all the modifications allowed and accepted, as long as they contribute to greater driving pleasure. So a friend of mine recently 1300-block is exchanged for a 1750 from a final phasing with more than 120 hp, but also if someone decides to be a 3.0 Busso V6 to build, react co-Alfisten excited. The result is that a lot of Giulia’s no longer original. Most of them are reduced, a brulpijpje is pretty much standard, and engine swaps are the order of the day. And why would you not? Alfa Romeo built this small achterwielaandrijvers to drive, so why that drive is not as much fun as possible?

Berlina and station wagon

On the basis of the Giulia is in small series, a station wagon built. With closed achteste windows does this model also in service with the Italian police, and Alfa’s own service department. Also get the Giulia a bigger brother, the Berlina. It shares the technique with the Giulia, but has a 1750 and later 2000 engine under the hood.

This Giulia has his 1300 block swapped for a 1750, has magnesium wheels and is considerably lower to the ground. It can and should all be in the Alpha world.

Coupe’s and Spiders on the basis of the Giulia

Alfa Romeo has in the years ’50, ’60 and ’70 a lot of different sports cars and Spiders built on the basis of their passenger cars, but these were in terms of technology is never quite right. The Alfa Romeo Giulia is known internally as Series 105, but the first Giulia Spider and the Giulia Sprint speciale are actually nothing else than a Giulietta (Series 101) with some minor exterior changes, a 1600 instead of the 1300 engine and a different name.

The first real sports car based on the Giulia, the GT, which, however, under many different names is built (GT, GTV, Giulia Sprint) and is often referred to as Alfa Romeo Bertone or simply ‘useless for me’, to the design that her drew. It was not Bertone himself, but his associate Giorgetto Giugiaro of the pen used.

A Alfa Romeo Giulia GTA with aluminum sheet metal and magnesium rims. Also note the “Letterbox” faceplate.

You can the different versions of this GT best distinguished by their faceplate. The early models have the nickname ‘Brievenbusje’, because of the gap between the front panel and the hood. Rare are the GTA-uitvoerigen, with an aluminum instead of steel bodywork. Two spark plugs per cylinder were standard, like dual Webers and magnesium rims. Alfaholics builds nowadays superb replicas or modern interpretations of these GTA’s.

Other sports cars based on the Giulia (105) were the beautiful Junior Zagato, the achtcilinder Montreal(!) and last but not least, the Spider, who in four appearances from 1966 to 1993 persisted. Together with the SZ was the last Alfa-Romeo, with rear wheel drive, until the arrival of the 8C Competizione and later the 4C and the new Giulia. And thus the circle is round again.

Gallery: Alfa Romeo Giulia

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