Alfa Romeo

Background

Updated: 29th October 2005

Alfa Romeo is an Italian automobile manufacturing company, founded as "Darracq Italiana" by Cavaliere Ugo Stella, an aristocrat from Milan in partnership with the French automobile firm of Alexandre Darracq. The partnership refurbished an idle Darracq factory in Portello, a Milan suburb, but at the onset of World War I the company converted to a munitions factory and the partnership was dissolved. Alfa Romeo has been a part of Fiat SpA since 1987. The company was originally known as ALFA, which is an acronym meaning Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili.

When Nicola Romeo, engineer industrialist, bought ALFA in 1915, his surname was appended to the company name. Within a few years of Nicola Romeo taking control, the company began to participate in Grand Prix motor racing.

The company's first automobile was the 24 HP, which appeared in 1910, and the following year entered the Targa Florio, the special competition in Sicily.

In 1928 Nicola Romeo left, with Alfa going broke after defense contracts end, and in 1933 Alfa Romeo was rescued by the government, which then had effective control. Alfa became an instrument of Mussolini's Italy, a national emblem. The Alfa factory was bombed during World War Two, and struggled to return to profitability after the war. The luxury vehicles were out. Smaller mass produced vehicles began to issue from Alfa's factories. By the seventies, Alfa is again in financial trouble, and the Italian government bows out in 1986, as FIAT buys in, creating a new group, Alfa Lancia Spa, to manufacture Alfas and Lancias.

Until the 1980s, Alfa Romeos, except for the Alfasud, were rear-wheel-drive.

In 1995 Alfa Romeo ceased exporting cars to the US. While rumours occasionally surface of their intent to return to that market, no formal plans have ever been announced. The most credible is a rumour that, with Maserati's help, the Alfa Romeo 159 and Alfa Romeo Brera will be the make's pilot models should it reenter the North American market.