THE ALFA GIULIETTA
This year Alfa Romeo celebrates 70 years of the Giulietta in its many forms. That's all the excuse we need to raid the Alfa archives.
▶ Giulietta Sprint
Unusually, the first of the new Giuliettas to be released was the coupé version in 1954, not the saloon. Called the Sprint, it had a 2+2 body designed and built by Bertone. From 1959 the Sprint also had a longer wheelbase and five speeds in the gearbox, the latter being heady stuff at a time when Fords in the UK all made do with just three. From 1962 it was renamed the 1300 Sprint to distinguish it from the Giulia Sprint, which had a 1600 engine. In fact, the 105 Giulias were to take over from the Giulietta and carry Alfa Romeo into the second half of the 1960s.
◂ Giulietta Berlina
'A purveyor of sports cars with saloon bodies' was one way that Alfa Romeo was described, and when their new Giulietta saloon – called Berlina in Italian – broke cover in 1955 with its 1290cc DOHC aluminium engine with a crossflow head, you could see why. The column shift that most came with was a little less sporty, though. Shorter, narrower and lighter than the 1900, the Giulietta took Alfa Romeo into a new segment for a new public, and marked the company's transformation into a mass-producer of cars.
▶ Giulietta TI
The Giulietta TI (Turismo Internazionale) was introduced in 1957, with some minor cosmetic tweaks and more power from essentially the same 1290cc engine
– up from 53bhp for the original Berlina to as high as 74bhp@6200rpm after a restyle in 1961. Although the standard Giulietta gearbox was stirred by a columnshifter, most TIS would have been ordered with a floor change. Naturally all of this did not come cheaply and the Giulietta could cost as much as three VW Beetles.
◂ Giulietta Spider
The two-seat Giulietta Spider debuted in mid1955, with bodywork designed by Pinin Farina. This one is the actual Spider prototype, which is on display in the Alfa Romeo museum in Arese. In 1956 a more powerful Veloce Spider was offered with power raised to 90bhp. The Giulietta Spider was available with RHD from 1961, but was replaced in 1962 by the Giulia-based 1.6 version.
▶ Giulietta TI
The sportier Giuliettas were spirited peformers on the track. This looks to us like a facelift version of the TI that lasted from 1959-1961 – note the sharper rear fins compared with the picture on the facing page. The TI outlived the standard Giulietta Berlina by a year (1964 vs 1963) before they were all replaced by new Giuliabased models in 1965.
◂ Giulietta Sprint Speciale
Also called the Giulietta SS, this was an aerodynamic two-seat coupé designed by Franco Scaglione on a short wheelbase Giulietta floorpan at Bertone and built from 1957-1962. Its body was made of steel, but there was also a competition version called the Giulietta SZ (Sprint Zagato) built by Zagato from 1959-1962 with an aluminium body. At the other extreme, a few estates were built too, some by Carrozzeria Colli being rather enticingly called the Giulietta Promiscua while a handful built by Carrozzeria Boneschi gained the rather clumsy Weekendina moniker.
▶ Giuliettas Old and New(ish)
Alfa have offered their Giulietta nameplate on three distinct generations of car. The first was from 1954-1965 as detailed on these pages. There was then a second generation from 1977-1985 and related to the Alfetta, and finally the third generation of FWD hatches shown here which was current from 2010-2020.