[alfa] Further information on the Alfa Super 6

["John Fielding" <johnf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi All,

Having started digging into the past history of this vehicle, today I managed
to lay my hands on the official sales figures for this country (South Africa).
The model was only produced for two years, 1984 & 1985 when AR pulled out.  As
I mentioned in an earlier post the number required to get the model
homogolated was 200.  This means 200 identical cars have to be manufactured
and sold before the car can be included in the championship series.  Well, the
sales figures fall a long way short of 200.

Here are the official figures obtained from the SA motor industry sales
bureau.  In 1984 the total sales figure was 54.  In 1985 the number jumped up
to 127, this was after the car won the SA series.  So it at least proves one
thing, the viewers of this series were taken with the championship winning car
and voted with there wallets!  However, the cars sold, according to one
source, were not fitted with the 6 carbs but rather the Bosch L-Jetronic.  I
suspect that this is not correct, the 1984 cars were certainly the carb
variety and the 1985 version had the L-Jet system.  The model was never
offered here with the 3.0L engine I am reliably informed, this was a retro-fit
when the 2.5L proved to be a bit fragile for the local conditions and the
dropping in of the GTV6 engine was a logical upgrade for those owners who used
the cars for towing caravans and boats.

Of course there has been a hard-core of Alfa racing nuts who did some amazing
things with the GTV6, one is Dawie de Villiers of Pretoria whose stroked
engine to 3.4L in the GTV6 red beast was so quick around Kyalami with its twin
turbos that it was eventually banned as being too quick for the circuit!  More
recently a friend of mine, Dr Stuart Kidgell has stuffed a very trick 164
quad-cam motor into an Ultima GTR and just last week won the inaugural
"Cannonball Run" beating many more exotic P cars etc.  Stuart also holds the
hillclimb record at Cape Town over a 13km course, the "Top-End Run" over a
flying kilometre of 330km/h and the lap record at Kilarney raceway in Cape
Town for road cars.  The 164 engine is reputed to develop over 450kW, that's
around 600HP.

Sadly after 1985 Alfa Romeo was an unheard name in South Africa, some say due
to the political situation, but in reality it all revolves around units sold,
plain economics.  By comparison Fiat, a sister company, stopped manufacturing
in 1980 for the same reasons, but were back fairly soon after in a token
gesture when its cars were assembled by Automakers PTY LTD, who also assembled
amongst others, Volvo, British Leyland, Renault, Nissan etc.  Today Fiat and
Alfa Romeo have a new assembly line and sales of the 156 and others although
not startling are picking up nicely here.  The new Fiat Stilo, which MS had a
hand in developing and features him in a tv advert, is also a stunning car and
very reasonably priced.  I had a test drive in one recently and was very
impressed, not quite in the same class as the 147 but damm close for the
price.

John
Durban
South Africa
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