Alfa Romeo’s museum not only charts the company’s long and sometimes glorious history, it also makes you aware of the passion that has kept the company going through its rockier periods
THINK ALFA ROMEO, THINK CURV ES. THINK lustrous crimsons, cherries, scarlets and garnets, rolling like the Tuscan hills over sophisticated underpinnings and strident engines, and glittering with heart-shaped scudettos or the occasional serpent or delicate four-leaved clover. Think Franchini, Nuvolari, Caracciola, Ferrari, 8Cs, Giulias and Spiders.
You do not think wedges. Certainly not wedges of dazzling, glimmering, disco-era emerald, brought to an abrupt halt by bands of traffic-cone orange, with cavernous vents and a profile low enough to trim the lawn on Centre Court. Yet the Carabo show car from 1968 (see opening image) is a vibrant insight into an Alfa Romeo that might have been.
Instead, Alfa has carefully cultivated the crimson curves image, somehow infusing even its most derided products with the kind of cultural heritage and a loyal, impassioned following that most car makers would kill for. So as a journalist you must fight to remain resolutely objective, enduring the disappointment when a Fiat-based front-drive hatchback with a 1.3 diesel isn’t some kind of 1965 GTA incarnate, hoping that the next car might turn things around.
Perhaps deliberately there are no Mitos, diesel or otherwise, visible within the recently refreshed environs of the Alfa Romeo Museo Storico in Arese, near Milan. It’s the first time evo has visited the museum since its refit between 2011 and 2015, and from the humble saloons to the eye-popping concepts and cigar-shaped racers, it’s a perfect opportunity to relearn why Alfa Romeo still matters.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der December 2017-Ausgabe von Evo.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der December 2017-Ausgabe von Evo.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
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BEST BUYS BMW M CARS
THE PERFORMANCE CAR LANDSCAPE WOULD HAVE looked very different over the last five decades without BMW. Its M division, founded in 1972, has produced some of the best driver’s cars ever to hit the road, and in the process has provided a stream of benchmark models for its rivals to chase. In recent years, stricter emissions regulations, downsizing and electrification have seen some of those rival cars falter, yet by and large BMW’s M machines have remained strong. In fact, some rank among the greatest the department has made think of the eCoty-winning M2 CS and M5 CS while others are the only options worth recommending in their respective segments. Price tags have risen with performance, however, putting those latest offerings out of reach for many, but the marque’s popularity means there are numerous earlier M models available on the second-hand market for far more attainable figures. Here are four of our favourites.
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