Grand touring in a veloce style...

A site full of Alfa Romeos...especially tipo 116 'Alfettas' in Australia

Hi, I'm Rob, and this is a wandering diatribe of sorts, focused on the human and environmental tragedy that is motoring with an Alfa Romeo. I was sucked into the vortex with my first ride in a 105 series Bertone coupe, and blundered from a superb 1.8 Giulietta into an amazing, if flawed, 33ti; only to finally achieve Nirvana with what I wanted all along - a Tipo 116 GTV 2.0. (I should mention the Golfs, the Swift GTis, the Ford Escorts and the Turbo 4WD Laser TX3 as well, but I won't). But this blog could just as well be about bicycles, music, mythology, philosophy, photography or art.

You can check the lot out right here.

Whatever fits: if it has a recommended torque setting, or can be digitised, it's in.


We do try to cover our costs by selling mugs, teeshirts, hats, bags, stickers and images...
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Monday, March 29, 2010

 

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Tuesday, June 23, 2009

 

Pretty funny - Michael Schumacher in the Suzuki Liana

Watch it before the BBC finds it and removes it...


Tuesday, April 07, 2009

 

Waiting waiting waiting...

Can't say I'd actually spend this much on a car, any car - even an Alfa. But it's small. And I like small. And it's feisty.

Boasting pearlescent white paintwork with a contrasting bodykit complete with a front splitter, mesh air intakes, plastic side skirts and a power bulge on the bonnet, it really looks the part. Power comes from an all-new 1,750cc four-cylinder turbo engine with 237bhp - all of which is sent to the front wheels. Expect a 0-60mph time of around six seconds and a top speed of 150mph. The newcomer is set to have a price tag of around £18,000, and UK sales will start in early 2010.

But I'm actually happy with my '82 GTV, thanks.

Monday, March 09, 2009

 

Alpine Classic Ride Report 2009


Tuesday, November 25, 2008

 

Golf Mk1 rally car circa '79


Golf Mk1 rally car CT 1979_582
Originally uploaded by gtveloce
Pretty sure this was the roof-top car park of the Bankstown Square shopping centre - if I'm wrong then it's Roselands!

Point is, if I must make this point, I can't imagine a shopping centre in Sydney opening up its car park to the start of a car rally these days... first, the traffic issue. Second, the inconvenience to shoppers. Third, where would the rally cars go next? Onto a neutral, untimed stage until they leave the Sydney basin?

Sunday, October 12, 2008

 

Top Gear Ford Focus ST - and it comes in blue

I don't always agree with the damn-the-torpedoes pro-auto bravado but it's always well filmed, articulate and funny...


Monday, July 21, 2008

 

Catalina Park - western side


Catalina Park_0056
Originally uploaded by gtveloce
This would be sooo fast... and so demanding to drive on at speed...

 

Catalina Park repairs?


Catalina Park repairs_0047
Originally uploaded by gtveloce
Recent repairs suggest some plans are afoot... but a report to council in 2005 suggested otherwise, including dismantling the wooden race fencing.

 

Catalina Park Katoomba


Catalina Park lake_0045
Originally uploaded by gtveloce
Would you believe this was originallly a privately-funded amusement park with an ornamental (and actual bathing) lake? Later to include a Catalina flying boat (in the centre of the lake, hence the name) that was presumably trucked in?

Later still (around 1950) a motor racing circuit was built around the edge of what was known as "the Gully", north and west of this shot, to the dismay of residents, many indigenous. Thousands of years of aboriginal Australian culture was disturbed or destroyed in the process of creating a track for car racing.

A shale and coal railway line also passed on the western edge of the park, providing a link from the main railway down to the mines in the valley..

Saturday, June 14, 2008

 

Alfa Giulietta 2 Oran Pk 82


Alfa Giulietta 2 Oran Pk 82
Originally uploaded by gtveloce
My 2nd-most popular image on Flickr. Probably because it's a car on a race track, and a race track that has been closed for redevelopment as housing. It's also an Alfa Romeo, an iconic car brand if ever there was one. And a Giulietta, possibly the nicest of the Alfetta line, outside of the GTV.

FWIW it's me in my Giulietta at Oran Park, NSW, Australia in 1982. Nice understeer... It's an Alfa Romeo Owners' Club event, probably a lap dash. If you don't know BP corner then you haven't lived. Basically you come hurtling out of some fast bends, go down into a ditch, come up and go hard left into a long straight. So you've picked up some speed, bottomed and released the suspension and then chucked it left into understeer territory. You can see how the rear wheels remain planted square to the road by the deDion tube and the fronts are trying v. hard to get the car around the bend... and not into the wall.

Saturday, June 07, 2008

 

Mini magic

Can't beat a short wheelbase, FWD and a handbrake...


Wednesday, June 04, 2008

 

On VW Golfs, windscreens and cables


Golf no windscreen 80
Originally uploaded by gtveloce
Not an Alfa, but a VW Golf. I like the Series 1, I had 2 of 'em myself, but this one is not one of those. It's seen here somewhere outside of Lithgow, NSW, Australia. Without a windscreen - it wasn't as laminated as we thought. The moral of this story is 'be careful what you wish for'... we (my then girlfriend and I back in 1980 - she owned and was driving the car) were behind a truck on a good road. I said to her something along the lines of 'maybe we shouldn't be so close, it could kick up a stone' just moments before exactly that happened. Ooops. And yes, Golf windscreens were quite difficult to find in 1980, especially in country NSW, but we found one after a bit of a search.

As a postscript, a few months later the Golf broke a throttle cable (it was simply a wire to the carby that passed through a rubber grommet in the firewall and eventually wore down to the metal). Not dramatic, the car just failed to accelerate as desired. (OTOH there's also a throttle return spring that broke on a separate occasion, resulting in the sudden application of full throttle.) Anyway, as the car sat in a driveway I wondered aloud how long clutch cables lasted, given that throttle cables break after a couple of years. Sure enough, the clutch cable broke the next time it was used. So be careful what you say aloud, it may actually happen...

Saturday, May 31, 2008

 

Alfa Romeo Giulia GTA Junior Gr.5 Racing

It starts slow but ends up fast and well done. Shame about the exhaust gases and all but oh well...


Wednesday, April 23, 2008

 

BMEP or Weight Transfer, anyone?

I've just put my Brake Mean Effective Pressure calculator online at Google Docs... http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pJDQWs1Qj-Gq7HgSBoeH3Rg

It includes my Weight Transfer calculator as well, but here it is on its own:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pJDQWs1Qj-GqNBA_KCIsydg

Plus I have a Simple Diesel vs Petrol calculator, so you can make sense of why diesel will take you further: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pJDQWs1Qj-GqOX1xloHwzPw

My Energy Mustknows... collected from all over, these energy facts are as correct as I can make them and are as objective as we can be in comparing different energy sources. Attributed where I can, please let me know if you see better figures. The conclusions you draw are of course your own... http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pJDQWs1Qj-GraqesgS5tfTQ

And of course my 'Energy to make a car' calculation, back-calculated from the retail price in Australia: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pJDQWs1Qj-GofPn1flSH-bA

Please use with caution, these are not guaranteed to be 100% correct in every way, nor have they been tested by teams of chimps. Anything incorrect or plain silly, let me know...!

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Friday, April 18, 2008

 

Is this the Top Gear test track?

Well, reputedly so. It looks like a classic WWII triangled runway layout to me. Check it out.

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Friday, April 04, 2008

 

Alfa Mi.To: are you ready to play?

The Mi.To - it moves!


Wednesday, April 02, 2008

 

Accidents happen

Shame to lose someone who has seemingly had a positive influence lately.. but there you go: Frank Stephenson, 49, the multicultural American who has guided Alfa Romeo's styling department to the triumphs of the 8C Competizione and the Mi.To hatchback, has parted ways with the company.

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Friday, March 28, 2008

 

Top Gear Alfa 147 GTA vs Golf R32 vs Focus RS

Well it's a bit of fun, isn't it?


 

Interesting look at Notes 8


8 Reasons You'll Love Using IBM Lotus Notes 8


From: elsua, 7 months ago





This is a presentation that details some of the new features from the latest release of Lotus Notes, Notes 8, and which clearly details that it is so much more than just another e-mail client.


SlideShare Link


 

Probably not the Alfa 159 GTA

But a nice getaway anyway...


Wednesday, March 19, 2008

 

Alfa Romeo MI.To

It's small, it's got Italian styling, it's got the Alfa badge. I want one, but please change the "me-too" name!


Thursday, January 24, 2008

 

Alfa 33 vs Alfasud at Pukekohe, NZ

Sud attack in NZ! Close and furious...


 

RACING ALFA Romeo VELOCE IN CAR.!!! HILL CLIMB RITSONA 2007

What a fine car for a hillclimb...


Thursday, August 09, 2007

 

VW Golf GTI W12-650

Yes, yes, utter waste of resources, time and money. Does nothing to help global warming. Still, kooky fun to watch. It's certainly not new or innovative in concept, either, although the engineer explaining how journalists rather than customers or simple logic could help it into production is a trifle revealing...


Friday, April 27, 2007

 

1o. Alfa Romeo Road Trip - GTV Autodelta

Yep, that's an engine...


 

Alfa Romeo 8c Competizione Promo Video

Can't resist... a bit of style, some history... sure, it's an advert (and I'm not even in the market!) and it's a global resource-hogger, but it's also art on wheels. I'm torn between supporting classic design and a strong feeling of environmental doom. Not good.


Monday, April 02, 2007

 

New word formations from evo mag

OK, I've had enough. Firstly it's "organic" grip vs "mechanical" grip.... huh? Now it's (from evo mag) The new Clio would feel more involving if it had some of the old car’s organic mechanical weighting.


OK, I think when a car mag says "organic" anything they mean "we really don't know what the heck it is but we believe it's different somehow". So despite the fact that tyres sit squarely (or not) upon the road purely by mechanical means, and derive grip by mechanical action between rubber and road, they mean to say that somehow something else is going on that they can't figure out. That somehow the tyres are better than the car's suspension and are providing extra grip that the suspension alone couldn't provide. Of course a suspension in isolation produces no grip at all, as it only does so through the tyres... yet somehow they need to say that some of this grip is being delivered generously by the tyres alone, despite the car's best intentions. So they call this magical mystical extra quality "organic". The car's crap, but the tyres are great. Why don't they say that instead?

And now evo has evolved "organic mechanical weighting". Hmmm. So what, I ask, could "in-organic" mechanical weighting be?? Why not just "weighting" or steering feel?

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Wednesday, March 07, 2007

 

More on the 8C

Some pics and words on the top-of-the-range-and-then-some Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione from evo mag. OK, it's fast, it's beautiful and it will do the job of luring eyes to the marque. Will it lead you to buy a 159? I guess it won't hurt, but it's a long way from an Alfasud. Personally I'd be more excited - and happier to own - a nuovo Alfa 1.5 Sprint. Pleeeeease!

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Tuesday, January 23, 2007

 

Top 10 engines? All gasoline? Wha??

It's silly, but here it is: Ward's Top 10 engines of 2007. Of course they mean power, smoothness, technical prowess, advancement of the art... but they do seem stuck on petrol as a fuel source. Electric motors produce more torque, instantly, but they don't look as fancy or sound so nice, do they? Or is that something we've only learned to like in the last 100 years or so? Anyway the "rules" preclude anything not installed in a US-spec car, blah blah blah.

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Thursday, December 28, 2006

 

The legal lemon meter

For you US citizens with an unreliable car that is driving you nuts.. but you aren't sure where you stand legally - well the Lemon Justice lemon meter is a for-profit site that offers a free "not yet" or "yes" action appraisal under each state's lemon law. I can't - and won't - vouch for its accuracy but I have tried it and it seems to be offering a useful inital service. Check it out yourself. Interesting idea, anyway!

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We do try to cover our costs by selling mugs, teeshirts, hats, bags, stickers and images...
addicted2wheels Large Mug
The A2W large mug!
gtveloce Large Mug
The GTVeloce mug!
gtveloce Large Mug
OODB large mug!
gtveloce Large Mug
The Tipo116 large mug!
gtveloce Large Mug
Yet another mug!




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