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ALFASUD HISTORY
The Alfasud came from inauspicious beginnings to become one of the best loved, best conceived and best packaged cars of the 1970s. Back then Alfa Romeo was wholly owned by the Italian government, a socialist-led group whose ideals were somewhat at odds with the elitist Alfa Romeo brand.
The Italian government desperately needed to solve chronic unemployment in the south of Italy around Naples. Alfa Romeo had a large disused aircraft factory at Pomigliano so the government conceived a plan to build a high volume Alfa Romeo using this factory and employing local labour.
Like many similar plans, this very simple idea looked brilliant on paper. It would make Alfa Romeo a volume player with a chance of becoming profitable -and no longer reliant on state subsidies - and it would bring employment to an impoverished area of Italy. Except in the manner of such schemes, it didn't work out quite like that
Alfa Romeo did a sterling job of building the sort of car that it had never built before. They chose Rudolph Hurska to head an entirely new team that was familiar with small car manufacture. He had worked with Porsche and Volkswagen and knew small car packaging literally inside out. Hurska's team quickly developed a small front wheel drive saloon with a brand new
