Friday, July 31, 2009

The Alfa-Romeo Alfasud Sprint Veloce 1.5 - Giugiaro's Coupé with Italian flair

It shared a lot of components with the Alfasud, but still looked quite different and as many say, so much better. The Alfa-Romeo Alfasud Sprint Coupé. In its fastest guise (first series) it delivered 95 HP and was capable of accelerating from 0 to 100 km/h in less than 10.5 seconds. Giugiaro had designed the car and it was gorgeous. For a coupé it was also quite spaceous and could seat four people with a surprising comfort even in the back. For the driver the seating position was typical Italian style. Your legs seemed to be too long and your arms to short when you were trying to find an optimal position. The dimensions and weight were similar to the standard Alfasud and so was the engine that had the same configuration as the one of the faster TI.
Mine was chocolat brown, quite a color for an Italian car, but it suited it quite well. The interior was beige.
The sound was terrific and the performance was good in comparison to what you could buy for similar money.
Main competitors were of course the VW Scirocco, the Ford Capri and the Opel Manta, but none of these could match the Alfa's Italian flair.
This is a car I would certainly like to drive again once in a while, just to remember what it was like.

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