The year was 1985, the place was the city of Milan. Alfa Romeo, State-owned since the early ‘30s, wanted to herald their 75th year in operation in style. In lieu of style, they launched the Alfa 75. It was an awkward-looking thing, but it had all the good points of the RWD Alfas that came before it along with, hopefully, fewer of the defects. It ended up being the last model premiered before Fiat took over.
Not that the Alfa 75 precipitated the downfall of its maker. The immortal rule of Italian car manufacturing is that everything will eventually be part of Fiat. They all fell like dominoes. Bianchi, Lancia, Ferrari… Alfa Romeo had managed to keep the Turin ogre from devouring them, but the Italian State was getting a mite tired of propping up the Milanese carmaker. After over a decade of losses, a failed JV with Nissan and chronic low productivity, Alfa Romeo was put up for sale.
Ford expressed an interest, enabling Fiat to pounce on the Milanese firm in the name of keeping a major national industrial player Italian-owned. Now that both Fiat and Alfa are part of the Stellantis hydra, one wonders what the big deal was.
But we’re digressing, aren’t we. This is supposed to be a post about the Alfa 75, known to some of the more transatlantically-inclined of you as the Milano. When it was launched, the 75 was but the latest re-hash of the Alfetta, born in the early ‘70s. The backstory is fascinating and long, and don’t think I could do it justice the way CC’s very own resident Alfista, the inimitable Roger “Rosso” Carr, has in this seminal piece. So we’ll fast-forward to 1985 and take the whole Alfetta / Giulietta / 90 / GTV / Sei saga as read.
The thing about the 75 was that it was clearly the last drop of juice being squeezed out of a relatively long-lived (13-year-old) platform. Not the longest-lived, of course, but in this 2-litre segment, the ten-year mark is a pretty clear delineation between “current” and “obsolete.” Fortunately, the Alfetta platform was extremely advanced when it came out. So much so, in fact, that nobody ever copied it. There were other cars with 5-speed transaxles, De Dion rear ends, melodious DOHC engines and in-board rear disc brakes, but having all of that in one vehicle that cost far less than the smallest Mercedes-Benz was quite a feat.
However, Mercedes could sell their wares for such outrageous prices because part of the price was impeccable build quality. The same could not be said about Alfa Romeo, certainly not in the ‘80s. To be fair, Alfa weren’t the only ones dealing with quality control issues (cough *Lancia* cough, cough…), but it still didn’t help the marque’s reputation.
Luckily, this is Alfa Romeo, a carmaker with an in-built and fiercely loyal fanbase. As the ‘80s wore on and the Fiat takeover became evident, the 75 became the last of the rear-drive Mohicans, the instant classic that all enthusiasts craved. If only it had been dressed in a slightly more alluring attire than that strange scrunched-up boxy body. It was devised by Alfa’s in-house designers, who must have had their fill of re-designing the Alfetta again and again.
Alfa Romeo considered manufacturing a wagon version of the 75 and went as far as displaying a couple of prototypes. They built seven of these, apparently, then figured it wasn’t worth the trouble. One of their least inspired decisions, in my opinion, as the wagon managed to correct the awkwardness of the saloon very effectively, not unlike what Citroën did with the Ami 6. Ah well…
Where the 75 really shined was in the engine bay. There were many options on the menu: the veteran 1.6 litre DOHC 4-cyl. dating back to the Giulia, a 1.8 litre (carburated or turbo), a 2.5 litre fuel-injected V6, the famous 3-litre Busso V6, a 2-litre Turbo-Diesel… Our CC has the 2-litre Twin Spark, a thoroughly modernized version of the 1962cc DOHC 4-cyl. seen in countless Alfas since 1970. With its new dual ignition system, VVT and fuel injection, the twin cam churned out 148hp. Not the most potent engine one could get on the 75, but by some accounts, the best-suited for the job, given the chassis’ limitations.
Inside, things were quite grey, square and strange. A hand brake that looked like a jet thruster handle, power window switches located on the ceiling, electronics that glitched and turned the dash either into a Christmas tree, or a black mirror… Somewhat entertaining, though the strictly rectangular design and dreadful plastics kind of offset that little ray of sunshine.
Same goes for the rear, though this particular car has the best plushie I’ve ever seen in a car (and there are a lot of cars with stuffed toys in this country… damn kawaii culture drives me insane.) Biscione for the win!
Technically, the last old-timey RWD Alfas were the SZ / RZ (which was based on the 75) and the ancient Giulia-based Spider, which were made until late 1993. But those were specialist models built by Zagato and Pininfarina. The last mass-produced RWD saloon was the 75, whose production was stopped at the end of 1992 – the last deliveries taking place in early 1993. Alfa managed to sell almost 400,000 of these odd-looking machines in eight years, which is quite a feat. For once, the enthusiasts put their money where their mouth was.
These rather good sales might go some way to explain why Alfa kind of retained the 75’s bizarre shape with its immediate successor, the 155. I’m not sure that was the secret sauce – the great engines and get-it-while-it-lasts RWD / pre-Fiat nature of the beast were probably more on point. I personally could never get past the looks, but having had some seat time in one back in the ‘90s, I can attest that they made for a very pleasant experience, in sound if not in sight.
Related posts:
Curbside Classic – 1991 Alfa Romeo 75 3.0 V6 (Milano): The Last Fling Of The Real Alfa?, by Roger Carr
Curbside Classic: Alfa Romeo 75 (Milano) – Alfa Romeo’s Swansong, by Mads Jensen
Curbside Outtakes: Alfa Romeo Milano – Yet Another Invisible Italian Car, by David Skinner
COAL: 1988 Alfa Romeo 75 2.0 Twin Spark – “The Italian”, by Mads Jensen
This, along with the Alfetta Sport Sedan and the GTV6, were my favorite Alfas of the 80s. I think if they had brought the Alfa 6 to the American market it could have been successful.
Angular and boxy looks were Alfa’s design language at the time; perhaps it was taken to the extreme on the 75, as the 33 is more balanced.
This was a well regarded car at the time, with a great price/performance balance, and arguably the best engine lineup in the category.
Quality was hit or miss, but at least in Italy, repairs and parts were cheap
I’ve never warmed to the looks of these — the droopy face and absurdly tall deck make the 75 look like a Jim Henson character.
With a hand still inserted.
Oh, that wagon! And it could even have been had with a diesel, if it made it to production. But the Busso version would have been wonderful. Though even the TS four would have been very nice.
This was one of the Alfas I embraced at the time, including considering at least a couple during a few of my searches. People either love the quirks or (mostly) disliked the looks. It did seem to be a car that was supposedly better long term if driven “appropriately” rather than as just another commuter car. Either that’s an overall mindset or a self-fulfilling prophecy I don’t know but I would have been in the first camp while doing the second so that’s all the justification I would have needed.
Looks-wise, this is a car that benefits greatly from a very slight suspension drop and slightly wider tires and wheels and not only to draw one’s attention away from other parts. People didn’t always talk admiringly of that styling, but at least they did talk about that styling, which a stylist may consider a success. Alfa certainly had numerous “styles” over the years, some of them quite extreme compared to others, and with a number of them often in a given year’s showroom concurrently.
I must say I’m not really the lol type, but your third sentence did actually generate that from me. Oh, and ol’ “Rosso” as the new nickname for Mr. Carr, brilliant!
That sentence went over my head until I read this. It IS a classic!
As for ol Rosso, I do like it, but he’ll always be Sir Rog to me.
I’m not really put off by its styling either, as these kind of elements were in the air (or water?) at the time; sort of the automotive Brutalist period. And I’m with Jim, as to the therapeutic effects of a bit of lowering and some nice bigger wheels to properly set it off.
Something like a Turbo Evoluzione model should suit
Say what you will about the styling, it certainly offers much to say, whether good or ill. “All publicity is good publicity, as long as you spell my name right.”
Aside from the doors and passenger cell carried over from the Alfetta-derived Giulietta, nearly everywhere that car made fairly conventional styling decisions, this one decided to try something else. Which I suppose makes a certain sort of sense when you’re trying to make a distinctively different new model out of an old one. The one significant place it didn’t do something unconventional, it’s where the Giulietta had already done so: a clamshell hood. Everywhere else you look, there’s something peculiar to see, a feast for the eyes, even if it is a feast of daunting delicacies and nouvelle cuisine.
Of course there’s that daring, abrupt kick-up at the rear, but also follow that same mid-flank swage line to the front, where it abruptly stops at the fender flare, leaps up over it… then instead of resuming as it was, it slopes down on a tangent from the flare, following the hood line instead. That same rear kick-up along the fat graphite (not quite black) trim strip at the beltline IMO works best on the Verde and other sporty editions, where it gradually flares out along the rear fenders to become a spoiler lip wrapping around the trunk, reducing the stubby look of the tail on lesser editions. The door handles look like they should lever out, but that part’s just a fingerhold, while the actual release is a textured square button that you press in with your thumb.
The headlight lenses tip inward rather than sloping down towards the center, a motif repeated in the taillight lenses. In versions with fully amber turn signal lenses in the rear, the full-width reflector panel (is there an Italian term for heckblende?) across the lower trunklid edge is also colored amber, rather than red as usual. The air extractor vent at the C-pillar isn’t the usual inset grille or gills; it’s covered by a panel along the trailing edge, which continues the top of the rear fender line forward, angles up from there and past the drip rail to the rooftop; this may have been a way to disguise how they added a slightly faster backlight to the Giulietta passenger cell, and visually breaks up the C-pillar to make it appear less broad.
The interior peculiarities have been covered above, but there’s one detail that even many long-time owners never discover. Aside from a bin under the center armrest, there doesn’t appear to be any conventional glovebox… but there actually is. What appears to be a mere knee bolster on the dash in front of the passenger seat is actually the front of a drawer; you simply pull the bolster out to open it, no latch to release. Finally, the dash must have been designed by a smoker, as the ashtray is another pull-out drawer, placed up high (just under the “Christmas tree” indicator cluster) and enormous when pulled out, which puts it close enough to the wheel that you can flick an ash into it without removing your hand from the wheel.
That’s nicely described.
The car would all be possibly ok-enough in the Gandini-’80’s-excess sort of way if only it was built with any precision. One can envision drawing-board sketches where this necessarily-cheap Guilietta overhaul worked a lot better, but as built, it’s just messy, and cheap-looking.
Alfa buyers, they thought, are not the types to line up, so we’ll give them a car that doesn’t, anywhere.
Even in Japan, neither the variegated pallettry of (allegedly) same-hue bits nor the wanton spaces between each apparently argumentative panel or plastic doo-dad have been able to be corrected here.
“We’ve got to reskin the Guilietta” stilo governo was told. “I’m tireder than it” said one: “I can’t be bothered” said another: “I am on leave” said a third: and “We have a budget of 15 lira, so stick plastic bits on the arches and roof gutters, and a real whopper of a one up the midline, and folk will still be arguing over it in 2026” said the last: and they did.
And we are.
After all these years, I can’t decide whether the Alfa 75 or the Fiat Argenta looks worse.
At least that station wagon, had it made it to production, didn’t have that ghastly raised boot and sloping side trim.
In retrospect, the pre face lift Guilietta was not that bad.
Haha! Good point.
I reckon the Argenta’s the worst offender. The ’72 132 – whatever its actual virtues, which are said to be few – was to me a much better-looking car than than the bland and droopy Alfetta. The 75 just looks as desperate as it almost certainly was, although to take up your point, it had a visually logical sort of connection to that dreadful facelift Guilietta.
As for the original Guilietta, I always thought it had a pert and crisp look that wasn’t too bad, whilst falling a large mileage from pretty.
First one I saw was in their Paris showroom.
I laughed out loud.
Poor Alfa. No money AND they’d lost the plot.