1992 Alfa Romeo 164 S, 2nd Owner, Low Miles, Upgrades, Up To Date Maintainence on 2040-cars

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Alfa Romeo unveils more details about US-spec Giulia

Last November, Alfa Romeo unveiled some of the tech specs about the 2017 Giulia in the US, but now the company has released even more details about the lower trims ahead of their upcoming appearance at the New York Auto Show. We still don't officially know their prices, but the Giulia arrives here in three trims: a standard model, the mid-range Giulia Ti, and the high-performance Giulia Quadrifoglio. The Giulia and Giulia Ti use a turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine with 276 horsepower and 295 pound-feet of torque. Power routes through an eight-speed automatic to the rear wheels, and the sedans can reach 60 miles per hour in 5.5 seconds. The optional Q4 all-wheel drive system can send up to 60 percent of the torque to the front axle when necessary. However, there's no word yet how this layout affects performance. Even the lower rungs of the Giulia range have a sporty demeanor. Standard features include a seven-inch driver info display between the analog gauges, a flat-bottom steering wheel, and keyless start. Depending on model, they come with either a 6.5-inch or 8.8-inch widescreen infotainment system, which uses a rotary dial in the center console for the controls. There's also a huge range of customization, including optional Sport, Luxury, and Performance packages and 13 available exterior colors. The Quadrifoglio ups the performance ante with a 2.9-liter twin-turbo V6 boasting 505 hp and 443 lb-ft of torque, which rockets the sedan to 60 mph in 3.8 seconds. To maximize efficiency, the engine has stop-start and cylinder deactivation. Customers who want a little more can order optional carbon fiber shell Sparco seats, which Alfa claims are the lightest in the segment, and carbon-ceramic Brembo brakes.

Alfa Romeo cancels plans for Giulia wagon to focus on Stelvio development

Automotive enthusiasts can talk all day long about the benefits of wagons over their respective crossover stablemates, but despite our protestations the case for the wagon seems to fall on deaf ears, especially in America. That seems to be the reason cash-strapped automaker Alfa Romeo has nixed any plans for a wagon variant of the new Giulia. According to Car, Alfa manufacturing chief Alfredo Altavilla believes the company can engineer the Stelvio SUV to drive as well as a Giulia wagon would – so no need for both. Porsche has shown with the Cayenne and the Macan that an SUV can be an excellent performance machine. That being said, as good as performance crossovers have shown themselves to be, the higher weight and center of gravity puts them at a fundamental disadvantage to a wagon. Killing the Giulia wagon is disappointing, but it's a pure business move. The company needs to focus on expanding it's lineup, not building variants of already existing models. Alfa is hoping to boost sales into the hundreds of thousands, and building a low-volume performance station wagon is not the way to do it. Despite the loss of the wagon, rumors persist that a two-door version of the Giulia is set to debut in Geneva. Related Video:

Vintage 1921 Alfa Romeo G1 rally car hits RM Sotheby’s

The only known surviving, fully operational example of Alfa Romeo's first commercial car is hitting the auction block at RM Sotheby's at its auction in Phoenix next month, when the 1921 G1 is expected to fetch up to $1.5 million. It's one of only 52 examples, including two prototypes, built between 1921 and 1923, and the only known surviving member of the series, stamped chassis No. 6018. It spent many years on a remote farm in Australia, during part of which the engine was put to work powering a water pump, before undergoing a restoration sometime in the mid-1960s. The G1 is powered by a 6.3-liter side-valve inline six that was said to have been designed with input from Enzo Ferrari, then a driver for the company, and was the largest motor ever fitted to an Alfa. It was based on two cast-iron three-cylinder blocks with fixed cylinder heads, a cylinder bore of 98 millimeters and a stroke of 140 mm to make 71 horsepower and 216 pound-feet of torque, with a top speed of 86 mph. It has a four-speed manual gearbox, which sends power to the rear axle through a single-dry plate clutch and an open driveshaft. The G1 was built to support Alfa Romeo's racing activities and was marketed to the same upscale clientele as Rolls-Royce, Hispano Suiza and others. A stripped-down version of the car won its production class at the Coppa del Garda, according to RM Sotheby's, but the production version suffered for being an expensive fuel guzzler at a time of economic and political chaos in Italy following World War I. So the company exported all 50 production versions to Australia (and possibly to South Africa), where this one was picked up by a Queensland businessman, who later went into bankruptcy and sent the car to a farm in the Outback to hide it from creditors. Ranch workers reportedly found it in the late '40s and used it as a farm runabout before the rear axle failed and the engine was used for the water pump. The remains of the G1 were acquired by a man named Ross Flewell-Smith, who would restore it over 10 years, including finding authentic replacement parts. It would undergo three full restorations in subsequent years.Related Video: