Fw: Alfetta Sedan Production Numbers

["Joseph A Fillip, Jr." <joseph.fillipjr@domain.elided>]

Alfetta Sedan Production NumbersHeeding John Hertzman's advice that
responses to technical questions and Alfa-related trivia should be posted
"On Digest", I forward this little "Off Digest" colloquy between myself and
John in the hope that it may be of interest to someone else out there in
digest land:

----- Original Message -----
From: Fillip, Joe
To: 'johnhertzman@domain.elided'
Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2001 1:44 PM
Subject: Alfetta Sedan Production Numbers


John: Sorry to keep pestering you with Alfetta questions, but I am becoming
increasingly interested in the minutae of these wonderful cars the more I
crawl aound my '78 Sports Sedan.
Do you know US production numbers for the Alfetta sedans, particularly the
second generation Sports Sedans (I believe the model designation is 116.58)?
If the number is as low as I think it is, you'd have to consider the Sedans
as victims of a particularly bleak time for all automobile manufacturers (at
least those doing business in the U.S.): the late 70s. Poor or non-existent
rust proofing (combined with Alfa's use of Russian steel of very dubious
quality), primitive smog equipment, and other power sapping and poorly
functioning add-ons (particularly air conditioning) meant that the cars
really never had much of a chance. A shame, really, because it is one
impressively integrated piece of design work.
As always, thanks for your insight and help.
Joe Fillip
Swarthmore, PA
-----Original Message-----
From: John Hertzman [mailto:johnhertzman@domain.elided]
Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2001 3:24 PM
To: Fillip, Joe
Subject: Re: Alfetta Sedan Production Numbers


There seem to have been 1,982 116.58 manual shift and 1600 automatics in
1978 + 608 116.58 manual and 200 automatic in 1979. Plus some which were
returned to Italy and sold as 1981 116.58B. There were 1250 of the "B" cars,
but don't know if they all made the round trip, and don't know about the
manual/automatic and 1978/1978 breakdowns.

Hard to quantify all the reasons for poor sales, but one of them was market
saturation which you also saw with the Milano and 164; first year of a new
model everyone who wanted one bought one, second year everyone who wanted
one already had one.

Nice cars indeed, and one of the hidden nice things about them is that the
2.0 twin-Spark is close to a straight drop-in, as are all GTV6
suspension/brake mods and most Milano chassis stuff, so a Sport Sedan hull
can be brought up to Alfa-style 1991 Eurospecs if one wishes without great
expense or much difficulty.

John

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