thanks to Alfa Romeo and Museo Storico Alfa Romeo di Arese.
For a 4-cylinder car displacing less than 2 liters, the Alfa Romeo Giulia GTA has always been expensive. 50% more than the standard Giulia when it was new, and ~800% more today. So what do you get for all that extra money? Quite a bit less, as it turns out. The A in GTA stands for “alleggerita” or lightened and the car is much much lighter than the standard one. At 1800 pounds, it’s 500 pounds less than the regular Giulia GT. Coupled with a seriously hot-rodded engine, the car is a firecracker and it remains today one of the most successful touring cars of all time. It won around the world, on circuits and in rallies in Europe, America, Africa, Australia, and South America, often against much more powerful cars.
Their giant-killing performance made them part of a long and illustrious legacy of successful racing Alfa Romeos. It also makes them an absolute riot to drive today. They are raucous, lively cars that turn every drive into an occasion.
In 2020, Alfa dusted off the GTA moniker for a new car, derived from the Giulia Quadrifoglio which is one of the best driving Alfa Romeos in decades. Also substantially lightened and very limited production, the new Giulia GTA is one of the most exciting Alfa Romeos in recent memory, thanks to its even more extensive use of carbon fiber, revised aerodynamics, widened track, and other performance upgrades. In this episode, these two cars meet at the Alfa Romeo museum, where Derek Tam-Scott investigates just how much genetic material they share.
BTS (behind the scenes) with DTS:
Derek Tam-Scott’s spirit age is excess of 75 years old, and nowhere is that clearer than his taste in cars. At age 16, he went to work at one of the United States' foremost vintage car dealers, which cemented his elderly taste. Now with a decade and a half’s experience buying, selling, driving, and brokering classic and exotic cars, he’s experienced many of the world’s most iconic cars. And even liked some of them.
Most of the car enthusiasts of Derek’s generation (and well, let’s be honest, even a generation or two before him) don’t have much experience with the magic of vintage cars prior to the 1980s, and therefore lack the knowledge and exposure to get genuinely excited about them. The goal of BTS is to give an insider’s perspective on why these cars particularly are great...or at least interesting and noteworthy. Derek brings his encyclopedic knowledge and broad experience together to contextualize these cars to give the audience understanding of both why it matters, and what it’s actually like to experience the cars.
ISSIMI is an enthusiast-owned, full-service specialist offering sales, consignment, collection management, service, and consulting to discerning enthusiasts and collectors. Specializing in complex transactions that include international services for exceptional cars, ISSIMI’s San Francisco Bay Area and Europe-based teams of experts pride themselves on transparency and knowledge.
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