Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale

This article is about the road going version of Tipo 33 racing car. For the racing car, see Alfa Romeo Tipo 33. For family car, see Alfa Romeo 33.

Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale

Manufacturer	Alfa Romeo
Production	1967–1969
Assembly	Milan, Italy (Carrozzeria Marazzi)
Class	Sports car
Body style	2-door coupe
Layout	Rear mid-engine, rear-wheel drive
Engine	2.0 L V8
Transmission	Colotti 6-speed manual
Wheelbase	2,350 mm (92.5 in)
Length	3,970 mm (156.3 in)
Width	1,710 mm (67.3 in)
Height	991 mm (39.0 in)
Curb weight	700 kg (1,543 lb)
Related	Racing car: Alfa Romeo Tipo 33 Concept cars: Alfa Romeo Carabo Alfa Romeo 33.2 Alfa Romeo Iguana Alfa Romeo Navajo Alfa Romeo Cuneo
Designer	Franco Scaglione

The Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale is an extremely rare road car built by Alfa Romeo of Italy. "Stradale" (Italian for "road-going") is a term often used by Italian car manufacturer to indicate a street-legal (usually heavily modified and/or underpowered) version of a sports car.

Only 18 are reported to have been made, of these five were modified to create six different concept car : the Alfa Romeo P33 Roadster G.S. (Pininfarina, 1968), the Alfa Romeo Cuneo (made by Pininfarina in 1971 using the P33 Roadster as base), the Alfa Romeo Carabo (Bertone, 1968), the Alfa Romeo 33.2 (Pininfarina, 1969), the Alfa Romeo Iguana (Italdesign Giugiaro, 1969) and the Alfa Romeo Navajo (Bertone, 1976). These five concept cars are part of the Museo Storico Alfa Romeo.

In Top Gear's 100 Sexiest Cars list, the Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale was featured as number 15.

Derivation

The 33 Stradale, first built in 1967, was based on the Autodelta Alfa Romeo Tipo 33 racing car. The car, designed by Franco Scaglione, and built by Carrozzeria Marazzi, made its debut at the 1967 Turin Motorshow.

Price

Built in an attempt by Alfa to make some of its racing technology available to the public, it was the most expensive automobile for sale to the public in 1968 at US$17,000 (when the average cost of a new car in 1968 was $2,822).

In Italy, the 33 Stradale was sold for 9.750.000 lire. In the same period, the price for an Alfa Romeo Giulia TI was 1.570.000 lire, about 5 million for a Jaguar and over 6 million for a Ferrari.^{[citation needed]}

Features

The 33 Stradale is believed to be the first production vehicle to feature dihedral doors, also known as butterfly doors. The 33 Stradale also features windows which seamlessly curve upward into the 'roof' of the vehicle. As a result of being built by hand, each model differs from the others for some details. For example, some model have only two headlights instead of four.

The race-bred engine bore no relation to the mass-produced units in Alfa's more mainstream vehicles. Race engineer Carlo Chiti designed an oversquare (78 mm bore x 52,2 mm stroke) dry-sump lubricated 1,995 cc (121.7 cu in) V8 that featured SPICA fuel injection, four ignition coils and 16 spark plugs. The engine used four chain-driven camshafts to operate the valve train and had a rev-limit of 10000 rpm. The engine produced 230 bhp (172 kW) at 8800 rpm in road trim and 270 bhp (200 kW) in race trim.

In another break from convention, Alfa used a six-speed transaxle gearbox by Valerio Colotti.

Performance

The car takes 5.5 seconds to reach 60 mph (96.56 km/h) from a standing start and has top speed of 260 km/h (160 mph).

Gallery

• 

  Rear view of 33 Stradale

• 

  An Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale, displayed on a stand

See also

• Ferrari Dino
• Lancia Stratos