Someone save this please!!!

[maxxjetus]

Hi all,
cgi.ebay.co.uk/Alfa-Romeo-Alfasud-Ti-/320650858312?pt=Automobiles_UK&hash=item4aa847cf48#ht_500wt_1156

i came across this earlier on and it made me wonder about what's become of our past- when you think of it a 1982 alfa romeo is "only" 29 years old, i remember seeing loads of these when i was a kid, it breaks me to see this now, it seemed like yesterday

anyway i read on the web somewhere that this car was a pretty good hot hatch in its day- quite an engineering specimen, too, combining a flat engine with a sleek body giving great cornering and handling- shame it rusted so quick, its been estimated that the majority were scrapped because of corrosion.
The sud is something a bit different, dare i say very exciting,
anyone else have good memories of these in the old days?

[stealthstylz]

Ace cars, handling is amazing. However as a project car that is showing signs of decay I can't think of much worse. "Suprisingly Solid" on a Sud means "from 30 feet away it still looks vaguely car shaped".

Matt

[waveman1500]

Yep, that's a definite spares-only car. Those things rust before your very eyes. Even here in South Australia, the driest state on the driest continent on earth, they all dissolved and returned back to the earth about 10 years ago.

[markgenesis]

Sadly "only 29 years" is old for a car in the UK with our crappy climate where cars can still decay even when in garages.

A good Sud is an awesome thing, had a shot of one back in the 90's when i was an apprentice mechanic, a bloke gave it to me to do the front brakes while he was on holiday for two weeks, "keep it as long as you like, be safer being used than laying at my place" he said, it was a stunning black three door cloverleaf 1.5 with twin webbers, "bung a set of pads in it and blat around in it for a fortnight" i thought, jacked up the front, removed a wheel, no brakes , nothing, just the hubs and shafts, the brakes were inboard on the side of the gearbox right under the bulkhead , were an absolute swine to do (for me as an apprentice anyway), was at it four days before i got them fitted and adjusted, and they still werent quite right (not right enough for me to charge the guy any money).

But, awesome thing to drive though, typical Italian, arms out legs bent, superb big deep dished steering wheel, sunk in round guages, sound superb too (a bit like an Impreza), the hot versions were pretty quick in their day too.

Would have one in a second despite the faults

[popuptoaster]

I had a cloverleaf Sud back in me youth, even at 10 years old it was more holes than metal underneath, it was such a great little car though i held onto it for ages longer than i should have, it was quite a regular thing to have all me mates round as we patched it up. it was going rusty everywhere, even in the middle of the roof.

[composimmonite]

The story goes that with the first ones the glue used to bond the windows reacted with the bodywork and caused accelerated metal decay so some windows actually fell out !

Paul H

[disasterbus]

Alfasuds are fantastic cars, I had 2 when I was about 20 - a 1979 stock 1.3 5 door and a 1977 1.2 Ti 3 door which had been 'played with' by the previous owner (a fabricator at Panther cars).
I still think the Ti was the best handling car I've ever owned, and since then I've had various 'hot' minis and Gti's and a couple of Porches.
Sadly both were terminally rusty well before they reached 10 years old.

[cairyhunt]

Thread needs pics!!!

Found this at malton breakfast club last October.





Mmmmmmmmmmm, alfasuds are ace

[nofrills]

Love em, my mates dad had one and his grandad had one too, this about 95, both were rusty, and we (don't shout) banger raced one of em at the round table banger race weekend (for charity though) but if i knew then what i know now!!

[markgenesis]

Feb 4, 2011 9:15:18 GMT cairyhunt said:

Thread needs pics!!!

Found this at malton breakfast club last October.





Mmmmmmmmmmm, alfasuds are ace

Thats absolutely gorgeous , the early ones are the best with the small rear lights.

[popuptoaster]

banger raced a Lancis Delta once, it did quiet well even when the back end got smashed to bits (rusty!) and it was dragging itself round quite fast with no rear wheels, it broke down 2 laps from the finish though.

[stealthstylz]

This needs to be made real



This is real





Matt

[Midas]

My Dad bought one of these new in about 1982, by 1986 it was in the scrap yard due to rust.

A superb example of excellent Italian engineering surrounded by crappy Italian metal and wiring.

[popuptoaster]

The Arna didnt sell really but they lasted a bit longer, Cherry with an Alfasud engine.

[maxxjetus]

Yes, i mean i know that when orders where received by clients back in seventies, the floor pan was already rotting out!! The steel quality is quite suspect...

I guess 29 years is a lot, but what went wrong with car in terms of the build quality?? I've seen 40 year old Giulia's and GT juniors with better bodywork than this!!!

Of course the suds where built in a different factory located near Naples; in fact i heard a rumor the factory is located just a few miles off the sea, and that the workers would leave the body shells outdoors before paint in the salty sea air, explaining why some alfasud could not make it to the showroom without the slightest hint of corrosion!!

[maxxjetus]

"The Arna didnt sell really but they lasted a bit longer, Cherry with an Alfasud engine."


I agree,

Truth be told, the arna is a bit of a strange concept though?
I mean the sud did not need a lesson in design , it needed a
lesson in craftsmanship!!





The sud engine was good, but the design was great!! changing it
to an ugly nissan cherry with an italian boxer engine feels kind of wrong!!

[Stu_B]

My Dad used to have one, had to sell it when I was born as they couldn't get a pushchair in it. It was boring cars for him from then on...

[jo0lz]

My Grandad had a couple of SuD Ti's from new in the late seventies

The second one, 1978, had rust spots appearing on the roof before it was 18 months old.....

Story goes Alfa had problems with birds in the factory crapping on the roof of the bare shells.....

But typical italians didn't bother properly cleaning the metal before spraying the cars!!!

GREAT cars, but built from cheap grade Russian/Polish metal that the italians took as part of an exchange deal for the FIAT 125 & 124 assembly plant machinery and manufacturing rights
Hence ALL FIATs / LANCIAs / ALFAs of that era seem to end up as ToTaL RoT-BoXs . . . a REAL shame

[MikeyPhresh]

Feb 4, 2011 12:30:25 GMT jo0lz said:

GREAT cars, but built from cheap grade Russian/Polish metal that the italians took as part of an exchange deal for the FIAT 125 & 124 assembly plant machinery and manufacturing rights
Hence ALL FIATs / LANCIAs / ALFAs of that era seem to end up as ToTaL RoT-BoXs . . . a REAL shame

I heard that the metal had high percentage of scrap from Soviet tanks / war machinery and that was the reason...

[akku]

yeah, lots of lovely "they dipped them in the sea" type stories but the real one is that they used a cheap reconstituted re-rolled steel from Eastern Europe which could actually rust from inside the metal in some cases. Some Ladas and Eastern European brands were built from the same stuff for a while, and there was an issue with rerolled recycled steel on some Fords in the late 80s IIRC - the problem is you can hardly weld to it because its not a contiguous metal, its like layers of metal in one sheet sort of thing, I'm not a metalurgist, but anyway when you MiG it rather than melting it burns. So you have a car which is prone to bad rust and its hard to weld.

Also don't forget that rust proofing from the factory was rudimentary, that these cars wee built in the era where designers didn't design out the rot traps, and they were being built down to a price which meant that (apparently) some stuff got skipped on a regular basis. ("hey, Alphonso, we ran out of primer again!" "No worries, just top coat on to the bare metal it will be OK!"

etc etc etc

A mate of my mum's had a really early 1.3 when it was nearly new and it was rusting bad.

Apparently the later ones are a bit better because they switched to regular steel.