Doug Nye: Meet the car that caused Goodwood to install a chicane

It’s easy today for enthusiasts to forget the dominance Alfa Romeo achieved during those years 1946-51, which Ferrari eventually broke down in that final season when the Alfa Romeo lines of Tipo 158 and 159 team cars were growing very long in the tooth and were right at the outermost limit of their development potential.

It was ironic that Enzo Ferrari himself should have been largely responsible for conceiving these highly-supercharged straight-8-engined 1.5-litre cars in the first place. That was back in 1937. The Scuderia Ferrari was at that time in its sixth season of acting as the quasi-works Alfa Romeo works team – campaigning Grand Prix cars designed and constructed by the major company at its Il Portello factory in Milan, but otherwise relieving the financially-strapped brand of the relentless cost of weekly racing.

However, through 1935-36 the Scuderia’s earnings from racing success had plummeted, as the State-backed German teams of Mercedes-Benz and Alfa Romeo waltzed away with far superior results. Italian racing technology (and funding) just could not match the German juggernaut.

In March, 1937, Alfa Romeo formally acquired an 80 per cent shareholding in the Scuderia Ferrari. The board agreed that the Scuderia should continue to function independently, with Enzo Ferrari himself continuing both to race and to sell Alfa Romeo cars. Portello design engineer Ing. Gioachino Colombo was seconded to Modena, and rumours circulated that the Scuderia was to build a 1,500cc vetturetta – effectively Formula 2 or ‘GP2’ – racing car to uphold Italian prestige Internationally… in a class free of State-backed, mega-money, German-manufacturer involvement. It was perhaps like seeking to play golf after having banned the superstars from taking part, and having made each hole bigger. Never mind, Mussolini’s Fascist state demanded prestigious sporting success from its automobile industry, Alfa had provided it in the past – and here was a way back to lost supremacy… by side-stepping the really big league.

The rumours were true. According to Mr Ferrari: “It was during this period, in 1937 to be exact, that I had the idea of having a racing car of my own built at Modena. This was the one later to be known as the Alfa 158 which, more than ten years later, over four seasons was to win 31 of 35 events in which it was entered.”

In 1982 GiovanBattista Guidotti – 1930s chief test driver and 1950s team manager of Alfa Romeo – told me how “at Monza for the 1936 Grand Prix, Ferrari knew the monoposto [the Grand Prix car programme] was finished and suggested we should do a 1,500 to beat Maserati in the minor class. Jano (chief engineer) said ‘No. I cannot, I am too busy’. And Ferrari said ‘Lend me Colombo, I’ll supply the Lambrusco and zampone [sparkling wine and the Modenese delicacy of stuffed pigs’ trotters] and we’ll build the car.”

Guidotti recalled: “Colombo discussed the project with me, and he liked to do a car like an Auto Union with the engine in the back, but I said ‘No, do a car like [the latest GP design] 12C-37 with the engine up front, gearbox in the back axle and transverse spring and I’m sure it will be successful’, and he did that with a beautiful straight-eight engine.”

Mr Ferrari similarly disabused Ing. Colombo of any Auto Union ideas, stating flatly: “It has always been that the ox pulls the cart.” But Colombo was seconded from Il Portello to the Scuderia premises in Modena to manage design of a new 1,500cc vetturetta to carry the Alfa Romeo banner into battle, not only against Maserati of Bologna, but also against ERA of Great Britain. If the Scuderia could no longer earn adequate return from Grand Prix racing, it would compensate with start, prize and bonus monies – and restored prestige – from vetturetta racing.

Mr Ferrari perhaps saw the vetturetta project as his company’s lifeboat…

Demonstrating that his Modena unit could not only campaign the works cars, but could also relieve Portello of design and manufacturing burdens, might well preserve the Scuderia into future years and so protect Enzo Ferrari’s, by this time comfortably established, way of life…

Italian morale had always been a thin and brittle crust. Repeated Grand Prix defeat by the Germans – the ‘TransAlpini’ as Mr Ferrari referred to them – would have been bad enough, had it followed heroic performances foiled only by what could be presented as misfortune. But repeated humiliation by a palpably dominant and apparently unmatchable foe simply did not gel with Mussolini’s self-image for fascist Italy. In effect, Alfa Romeo CEO Ugo Gobbato experienced ever-increasing pressure from far, far above – so someone had to go (Jano) or something had to change (Scuderia Ferrari’s proxy mandate).

The idea of building the vetturetta was accepted early in 1937 and it was designed in Modena by Ing. Gioachino Colombo of Jano’s staff, Alberto Massimino, Angelo Nasi and Federico Giberti with Luigi Bazzi helping create and source parts and build the cars.

The work was completed that December; just six brief months. The Scuderia was given priority access to Alfa Romeo’s foundry and machine-shop facilities and progress was rapid.

In effect Colombo took experience of one 1,500cc straight-8 cylinder block from the two employed in Jano’s latest 3-litre V16 GP engine design, and adapted it to the new Alfa 158 vetturetta requirement.

In the Scuderia’s machine shop, original 158 engine cylinder barrels were machined from solid billets by staff specialist Reclus Forghieri. His then 4-year-old son was named Mauro; some 23 years later he in his turn would be appointed Ferrari’s future long-time chief engineer.

On New Year’s Day, 1938, Alfa Romeo announced establishment of a new in-house works racing team to be known as Alfa Corse – ‘Alfa Racing’. The new organisation was absorbing the Scuderia Ferrari in its entirety, and the old company was being liquidated.

Alfa Corse was tasked to research, construct, build and operate new Alfa Romeo racing cars, and it was to set up adjacent to the Portello works. Mr Ferrari was to manage it, in Milan.

All the existing Grand Prix and sports cars, the machine tools, the accumulated racing spares and associated equipment, and the four brand-new, as yet untried, 1.5-litre supercharged vetturetta cars were to be gathered at Alfa Corse.

The prototype 158 engine had just been tested at the Scuderia works in Modena and during 1937 – sure enough – the new Alfa Corse team achieved some vetturetta solace.

In July, 1938, three Alfa 158s made their racing debut in the Livorno vetturetta race. Driven by Emilio Villoresi, Clemente Biondetti and Francesco Severi the debutants promptly finished first, second and seventh – all-Italy applauded – Alfa’s board, and the Fascisti, were thrilled.

Four of the new Alfetta cars then contested the Coppa Acerbo at Pescara in August, but after carburetion troubles best placing was only fourth (Francesco Severi) behind three Maseratis.

The Milan GP vetturetta race supported the premier-league 1938 Italian Grand Prix at Monza. Four 158s ran, and two finished 1-2, driven by Emilio Villoresi and Severi.

In September, the new Alfettas returned to their true birthplace, Modena, for the city’s street race but all four retired after plug and brake problems. Still it had been a promising first half-season.

The 1939 Tripoli GP in Italian Libya was run for vetturetta cars only, plainly expecting an all-Italian triumph by either Maserati or Alfa Romeo. But Daimler-Benz, spoiled their party with two brand-new 1,500cc V8 W165 cars, built in in secret, which out-performed six 158 Alfettas – only Emilio Villoresi’s finishing – third.

July 1939, back at Livorno, the Coppa Ciano saw three Alfettas finish 1-3-5 ‘Nino’ Farina winning for Alfa Corse.

Five of the 158s – four race cars and a spare – then reappeared at Pescara for the Coppa Acerbo in August, and they finished 1-2-3-4 – Clemente Biondetti winning Carlo Pintacuda, new-boy Farina and Francesco Severi.

The Swiss Grand Prix then saw Hermann Lang lead in the wet for Mercedes-Benz, but second – only 5 seconds behind – was Farina’s minor-class Alfetta, holding off the rest of the star German GP cars and drivers until lap 7 – and finally finishing seventh overall, with Biondetti ninth. Even in 3-litre GP car company the new little supercharged Alfa could be a real ‘bomba’!

The Alfettas raced on into 1940 when Farina won the Tripoli GP in one, before Italy rashly entered World War 2 as Germany’s ally. And postwar with no German opposition and 1.5-litre supercharged cars facing unsupercharged 4.5-litre runners in the revived Grand Prix/Formula 1 category, the Alfettas – which had spent the war years hidden in a cheese factory – were virtually unbeatable from 1946-48, winning repeatedly in the Italian, Belgian, French and Swiss GPs amongst others... The factory took a money-saving sabbatical from racing in 1949 – after two of its leading drivers (Jean-Pierre Wimille and Count Carlo Felice Trossi) had both died, one in a Gordini crash, the other from cancer.

Their absence that year allowed the new Ferrari GP car marque to find its feet – but with backing from Pirelli and a consortium of Alfa dealers the factory team returned to the fray in 1950-51. In 1950 the ear-splitting highly-supercharged scarlet cars won at San Remo and in the British, Monaco, Swiss, Belgian, French and Italian GPs. New driver Juan Fangio – from Argentina – challenged the ageing but still immensely rapid ‘Nino’ Farina for the inaugural Drivers’ World Championship title, the Italian edging it.

Into 1951 the Alfa 158s were updated into 159/159B form. Their watch-like straight-8 engines were, by this time, two-stage supercharged to 30psi pressures – and more. Their fuel consumption soared to some 2 miles per gallon. The Alfa Corse crew became pit-stop stars, refilling multiple fuel tanks and returning their wailing 10,500rpm projectiles to the fray while the unblown 4.5-litre opposition – with one notable exception – trundled economically round. It was tortoise v. hare racing – with the fabulous Alfettas as the hares. But the latest 4.5-litre V12 Ferraris were not far off their pace, and at the 1951 British GP Froilan Gonzalez for Ferrari inflicted Alfa Corse’s first serious defeat.

Still the Alfettas won the Swiss, Belgian, French and Spanish GPs – and Fangio of Alfa Romeo took his first Drivers’ Championship title from Alberto Ascari of Ferrari. Appreciating what a close-run thing that year’s contest had been, Alfa Romeo retired from Grand Prix racing forthwith – and the fabulous Alfettas were consigned to storage, or broken up, 14 years after their introduction and after eight years’ active racing…

Late in their last season, Alfa Corse entered one car for ‘Nino’ Farina in the September Goodwood race meeting. This was a huge coup for the organizing BARC and for Goodwood’s Freddie March, the circuit’s creator and patron. Motor Sport reported how the Goodwood crowd: “saw Farina, in an old-style 159 [wrong] Alfa Romeo – the type with swing-axle rear suspension, forward-facing duct to the air intake and single exhaust pipe – raise the lap record to 97.36mph and win every race for which it was entered.” He had arrived with the car in a “vast Dodge truck, accompanied by three mechanics” – this was serious stuff, a sensational sight in the Goodwood paddock…

In the Formule Libre Woodcote Cup race – over just 5 laps – “Farina’s engine was started with one minute to go, and the Alfa Romeo simply walked away from the rest… Farina drove a splendid race, setting the lap record to 96.92mph.

The Third September Handicap - again over 5 laps – proved to be: “Quite the finest race ever seen at Goodwood and a complete justification for short handicap races. Parnell was on scratch with Farina and the HWMs had 47secs start. After a lap Farina led Parnell’s Ferrari (and) on lap three Farina and Parnell were sixth and seventh. Parnell, driving splendidly, couldn’t hold the flying Alfa Romeo, which Farina was driving so calmly yet so very, very fast, passing left or right of other cars as expedient. After four laps Farina was fourth. On the intense last lap the crowd was breathless with excitement as Moss pressed every ounce from the (leading) HWM and Farina, now second, streaked down the back leg in pursuit. Into Woodcote Stirling just led, but only just – Farina passed on the run-in, to win this great race by a mere two seconds. Twice had Farina equalled the lap record he set in the second race… Grand stuff!”

And in the 15-lap ‘Daily Graphic’ Goodwood Trophy for Formula 1 cars – the day’s feature race – Farina passed Parnell’s ‘ThinWall’ Ferrari on lap 2 “and thereafter drove through the race impeccably, passing slower cars without hesitation and taking the left-hand curve past the paddock in a true four-wheel drift. He raised the lap record to 97.36mph, and winning easily – at over 95mph.”

Heady figures for 1951, and that description of Farina drifting the Alfetta through the left-handed paddock curve in those chicane-less days is truly significant – for it made the organisers aware of just how exposed were their paddock and pits should a really fast car ever go out of control there – and for 1952 the now famous chicane was introduced to prevent that happening.

And so we owe much to World Champion ‘Nino’ Farina’s pace – and to his wailing Alfa Romeo Alfetta’s well-balanced high-speed handling – to make that point. At Revival, then, look out for the car that caused the Goodwood chicane to be introduced…

Photography courtesy of The GP Library.