If it is true that behind every great project, there are great men... the history of Autodelta, the Alfa Romeo racing team from 1963 until 1983 is the perfect paradigm of this belief. The return of the glorious Milanese brand to the circuits in the 1960s was born from the iron will of Giuseppe Eugenio Luraghi, a multifaceted character and man of many talents. He was a formidable strategist of the unpredictable industrial world, poet, painter and above all, a visionary, capable of translating his dreams into winning reality.
In his second managerial mandate at the Portello company (he already held the position of vice president from 1952-1958), Luraghi, by decision of the IRI (Institute for Industrial Reconstruction), was appointed president, in an attempt to save Alfa Romeo, renowned brand but constantly struggling with financial difficulties. The factory, now in deep crisis and shaken by trade union unrest, had always been identified, more than any other on a global level, as the hotbed where innovative sports cars were born, but also as an environment notoriously incapable of establishing itself as a producer with its finances in order.
The Alfa Romeo long trail of triumphs on the circuits and incomparable roll of honor, which were inscribed in the DNA of every car that crossed the gates of the Portello factories, was the legacy to be saved, and no one could manage this task better than Luraghi, who had already confirmed himself as a capable commander of all the enterprises entrusted to him. In his new role, he, a Milanese DOC, linked to the myth of the great brand whose factory was still located in the north-west district of his Milan, achieved the true miracle.
Photographer unknown
Giuseppe Eugenio Luraghi
Mindful of the triumphs of the early 1950s, when the factory management decided to withdraw undefeated from competitions in an official role, Luraghi believed in the indissoluble bond Alfa Romeo had with the world of the tracks, and as a good agitator, he convinced the top management of IRI to undertake the path interrupted in 1953... attempt to return to sports cars, a sure guarantee of the factory's image and also an incentive for greater sales of production cars.
He had at his disposal a formidable group of designers and technicians gathered in the SES (Special Experiences Service) who, under the guidance of Orazio Satta Puliga, an excellent organizer and balanced manager, knew how to combine new choices with production realities.
At Satta's side was Giuseppe Busso, an extraordinary designer, shy and reserved, protagonist of all the brand's major successes in the post-war period. With the successful Giulietta and Giulia models (production codes 101 and 105) the factory had achieved notable success and regained a certain stability, but Luraghi also wanted confirmation from the sports cars competitions. Having that in mind, he asked his SES team to make the high-performance sporty version of the car from the current production range, to enter as an official participant in the ETCC (European Touring Car Championship), which took place under the FIA auspices, and was followed with enormous interest from the public.
The choice was Giulia 1600 TI, which, with planned development and marked with the suffix “Super”, became a real racing car, a little penalized by the weight, but a formidable opponent on the track to the BMW TI and the Ford Lotus Cortina.
It was also decided and kept in great secrecy, to prepare for the track the newborn Giulia Sprint GT which would pass later in history as the legendary GTA. For the upper step in the GT category, the chosen candidate was the magnificent TZ (Tubolare Zagato), a car with winning cards but also the car, with a long and troubled genesis.
Provided by Alfa Romeo, S.p.A.
Orazio Satta Puliga
Until Alfa Romeo's decision to officially return to racing, the honor of the brand was defended by private companies and tuners. The models that emerged from the factory... capable of thrilling the drivers, who with varying success entered tracks with their TI, CS, SS, or SZ cars, were often able to compete successfully with the competition. However, the lack of a specific structure, such as a racing team organized by the factory, penalized the drivers' aspirations significantly.
It is true that there were the Bosato and Conrero organizations from Turin, as preparators... and the Jolly Club and Sant Ambroeus teams, as well as otherwise organized and managed teams.
But for the big step forward to take place, it was necessary to wait for the arrival of the TZ which was the first class sports car... produced again in Portello... after the decade-long break, as a clear indication of the path taken by Luraghi towards the racing universe.
The TZ was the car destined to become the progenitor of the family of Alfa Romeo cars that would bring titles back to the Milanese company, but it was decided not to adorn its sides yet with the legendary symbol of Alfa Romeo racing cars, the white triangle with a green four-leaf clover. This honor was reserved for the Giulia 1600 TI Super, chosen to counter the supremacy of the Cortina Lotus, which dominated racing in the Touring category.
In the GT category, however, the path to achieving success was blocked by the lack of adequate structures to produce the sufficient number of cars for homologation, which forced the TZ to compete in the Prototype category, in an unequal battle with competitors.
The TZ was an extremely competitive car, but due to the small number of produced cars it was far from being able to fight for the title.
To remedy the problem, two solutions were considered;
to support the factory with an external department capable of assembling and preparing the required number of TZs to obtain FIA homologation in the GT category, and the other:
to broaden the battlefield and bring the already existing, magnificent Giulia Sprint GT, a model into regular production since 1963 and full of sporting flair, with a series of targeted measures, to a "track racing car", which could be homologated without difficulty in the Touring category.
In Luraghi's plans, the new car would thus become a weapon worthy of the green four-leaf clover talisman, the legacy of the great driver of the past Ugo Sivoci left to the brand, and which proudly adorned all the cars that officially started in competitions.
It was again SES that took charge of making the necessary changes, with Luraghi turning to
Orazio Satta and Giuseppe Busso with the "request" to create a winning car, destined for competitions in the Touring category." It was a difficult task but executed brilliantly by Satta and Busso.
The new car born with the internal studies code 105.32 and marked as GTA (where A stood
for lightened), was presented after exhausting tests... at the Amsterdam Motor Show in February 1965. Initial production started in the Special Experiments Carpentry department, but it was a relatively bulky car without the appropriate structures for processing and testing.
To remedy this, Luraghi looked for an external point to which the entire competitive program would be entrusted.
Alfa Romeo had already practiced a similar approach in the past and Scuderia Ferrari remained a valid example of that way of acting. But once again, fate decided to cross paths with another great character, and that lucky meeting marked the history of the brand for the next twenty years.
When trying to evoke that incredible era of newfound confidence in a Europe in full recovery, where discoveries, intuition and imagination were the key words for designing a brilliant new automobile, in Italy, there certainly was no shortage of names and choices, but the name that appointed itself in first place to Luraghi for his proven genius was undoubtedly that of Carlo Chiti, a Tuscan engineer who left an indelible mark on many crucial projects in the construction of the winning Italian machines.
Photographer unknown
Ing. Carlo Chiti
Chiti was a Tuscan from Pistoia, an almost Renaissance character, whimsical, exuberant and with a volcanic character, a man of vast culture, good taste, curious, witty, had a weakness for dogs and was an undoubted genius in the field of mechanics and engines.
Chiti's name had strong resonance in the world of motor racing. He trained at the University of Pisa in the aeronautical sector and from 1952 to 1957, he was in the pay of Alfa Romeo where he worked at the SES under Orazio Satta. He was responsible for developing the Giulietta Sprint "Veloce", a car whose immediate success already denoted the exceptional abilities of the corpulent young man who spoke with a marked accent of his Italian region.
In 1957 he joined Ferrari at the suggestion of his friend Giotto Bizzarrini, where Drake entrusted him with the technical direction of the racing sector. At Ferrari, together with Bizzarrini he created the 156 F1, convincing Ferrari to adopt the rear engine on its cars and winning the F1 World Championship with this car.
Then, in 1962, more out of solidarity with his dismissed colleagues than a disagreement with Drake, Chiti left Ferrari to embark on the ATS adventure, for which he created a formidable but unfortunate F1 car and extraordinary high end GGT car. But the brief permanence of the ATS factory was soon coming to an end. While the company was sinking, victim of bad choices, Chiti was contacted by Alfa Romeo with the renewed collaboration proposal.
The interest was mutual because he remained linked to the Portello factory and Luraghi was sure he had identified the men he was looking for. Reluctantly Chiti, still busy with the ATS, declined the invitation to join Alfa, but made himself available for any possible help. It was clear that his answer was only a delayed “yes”.
Luraghi's plan slowly took shape. The idea of setting up an autonomous racing department became a feasible possibility, and the new cars planned, already being completed, were powerful weapons for entering the battlefield. There was still only one thing left to realize his dream. In his vision, the crown of the entire project was to be a car of autonomous concept, nature, and design, capable of competing successfully in division 6 of the FIA regulations, in the Prototypes group, the real battlefield for the brands and drivers of absolute relevance.
Luraghi had imagined a pure two-seater created for racing, suitable in displacement for Alfa Romeo's production range, which had to remain within limits of two liters of displacement and would draw attention to the already existing engines that equipped Portello's cars.
To satisfy these reasons, the request was explicit: To design a Group 6 car with the task of reaffirming the image of the brand in competitions, that would remain connected to the production program and which at the same time could connect Alfa Romeo to the glory of the past. This mission, very complex and difficult to carry out, was once again entrusted to the internal SES team, and it was Busso once again who looked for the solution.
This talented technician, serious and taciturn, a faithful soldier of the Portello factory had the opportunity to study the often-cutting-edge solutions in the aviation construction department during the war, because Alfa Romeo, like other Italian industrial companies, was transformed for war purposes into a producer of material intended for military requests, specifically, of the magnificent aircraft engines and similar structures for use in aeronautics.
Busso had the natural gift of understanding mechanics in all its aspects, and even without an engineering degree he was able to conceive and implement extraordinary projects. He had cut his teeth in the Milanese factory, and along the way, step by step, he had reached command of the project department at SES. Having still fresh memories of certain solutions used in the production of aircraft, and transforming these concepts into practice, he designed in response to Luraghi's request, a revolutionary frame, robust, rigid, and light enough, capable of withstanding the forces and stresses to which was subjected the racing car. So, all the pieces were there, waiting to be inserted and complete the mosaic.
Photographer unknown
Giuseppe Busso
The adventure could start. The following pages are the part of memory and affection born in a time that has now passed, but which has left a lasting impression on many.
In 1963, Alfa Romeo was frantically searching for the external structure capable of completing the assembly of one hundred examples of the Giulia TZ and obtaining the model's approval in the GT category.
Luraghi seemed to have identified the solution by involving the external workshop of the Chizzola brothers, dealers of Innocenti cars for Friuli region, who were offered a kind of semi-official collaboration of the Portello factory.
The two of them liked the idea, they both had a past at Alfa Romeo and were available. Thus, the agreement to complete and fine-tune the TZ was stipulated, and the decision was made to create an autonomous structure suitable to carry out this task.
Photographer unknown
Auto Delta workshop at Tavagnacco di Feletto Umberto 1963
On 5 March 1963, with the deposing of the agreement of association at the company register office of Udine, the Auto Delta company was born in Friuli, in Tavagnacco di Feletto Umberto (Udine), with the social purpose of assembling and preparation of the Alfa Romeo Giulia TZ (internal code 105.11).
The workshop owned by the Chizzola brothers was equipped and production began in May of the same year. The name of the company, Delta, was chosen almost by chance, borrowed from an advertisement, because Delta, a Greek letter with its three points, ideally represented the three places where the Giulia TZ was born, and word Auto was placed before Delta, to clarify the nature of the company.
The TZs were created with chassis produced by the Ambrosini aeronautical company of Passignano sul Trasimeno (Perugia), and the mechanical parts were made at Alfa Romeo in Portello (Milan), while the bodywork and interiors were produced at Zagato. Everything then ended in Feletto Umberto (Udine) where the Giulia TZ was assembled and set up. Chiti, involved but still at the ATS, offered himself to the Chizzola brothers for help in the development and testing, taking into account that the ATS in Pontecchio Marconi near Bologna had special workers and equipment at its disposal, capable of improving some aspects of the TZ.
With a lot of secrecy, the TZs landed in the ATS warehouses for testing, and it was there that the exhaust system that exited under the door on the driver's side was tested and then adopted, the same that in the future, would also be installed on the GTA.
Assembly had reached the rate of five TZs per week, and production was now consolidated, so that within eight months the necessary number of cars was reached and fully tested, and in January 1964 the long-awaited homologation arrived.
Auto Delta was not yet the racing department of Alfa Romeo, and it was Scuderia Sant'Ambroeus that entered competitions so, the factory had entrusted the first TZs assembled with engines prepared by Virgilio Conrero of Turin to this private racing team from Milan.
However, in October 1964, Chiti, now officially unemployed after the failure of the ATS ... at the request of his friend Lodovico Chizzola, and enthusiasm of Luraghi, entered as an equal partner in Auto Delta, and in the ongoing program, the company also added to the activity the faculty of building prototypes, mechanical processing, and participation in competitions.
Luraghi, in the meantime, developed the idea of moving the structure near Milan, and setting up a small factory in Settimo Milanese, where according to his plans the Alfa Romeo racing department would be created. Lodovico and Gianni Chizzola, linked with their primary work of selling the Innocenti cars in Friuli, politely declined the offer to come to Milan, and remained open to external collaboration.
Chiti accepted the transfer and in November 1964, a good part of the structure was already in Settimo Milanese, and the construction work on the warehouses for the production use, was in the final phase.
The name Auto Delta underwent a merger becoming Autodelta, the black-white checkered flag with the writing Autodelta was added to the stylized letter Delta of the logo, and Carlo Chiti was appointed General Manager with full decision-making and executive powers but also with total financial dependence from the 'mother house'.
By now all the research work had also been transferred to Settimo Milanese, and the small factory with around forty employees and workers began operations.
Autodelta was Born
March 5, 1963
Google image
Autodelta S.p.A., Via Enrico Fermi, 7 Settimo MIlanese, (Milano). 1964
Copyright: Robert B. Little
February 26, 2024
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