The Alfa Romeo 1900 is an

automobile A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with Wheel, wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, Car seat, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport private transport#Personal transport, pe ...

produced by Italian car manufacturer

Alfa Romeo Alfa Romeo Automobiles S.p.A. () is an Italian luxury car manufacturer and a subsidiary of Stellantis. The company was founded on 24 June 1910, in Milan, Italy. "Alfa" is an acronym of its founding name, "Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili." ...

from 1950 until 1959. Designed by Orazio Satta, it was an important development for Alfa Romeo as the marque's first car built entirely on a

production line A production line is a set of sequential operations established in a factory where components are assembled to make a finished article or where materials are put through a refining process to produce an end-product that is suitable for onward c ...

and first production car without a separate chassis. It was also the first Alfa Romeo offered with

left-hand drive Left-hand traffic (LHT) and right-hand traffic (RHT) are the practices, in bidirectional traffic, of keeping to the left side or to the right side of the road, respectively. They are fundamental to traffic flow, and are sometimes referred to ...

.Conceptcarz
1955 Alfa Romeo 1900 CSS - Conceptcarz
accessdate: 22. tammikuuta 2016 The car was introduced at the 1950

Paris Motor Show The Paris Motor Show (french: Mondial de l'Automobile) is a biennial auto show in Paris. Held during October, it is one of the most important auto shows, often with many new production automobile and concept car debuts. The show presently take ...

1900 Berlina and Sprint

The 1900 was offered in two-door or four-door models, with a new 1,884 cc (bore , stroke ), , 4-cylinder

twin cam An overhead camshaft (OHC) engine is a piston engine where the camshaft is located in the cylinder head above the combustion chamber. This contrasts with earlier overhead valve engines (OHV), where the camshaft is located below the combustion cha ...

engine. It was spacious and simple, yet quick and sporty. The slogan Alfa used when selling it was "The family car that wins races", not-so-subtly alluding to the car's success in the

Targa Florio The Targa Florio was a public road endurance automobile race held in the mountains of Sicily near the island's capital of Palermo. Founded in 1906, it was the oldest sports car racing event, part of the World Sportscar Championship between 1955 ...

, Stella Alpina, and other competitions. In 1951, the short wheelbase 1900C (c for corto (Italian for short)) version was introduced. It had a wheelbase of . In the same year the 1900 TI with a more powerful engine was introduced, it had bigger valves, a higher compression ratio and it was equipped with a double carburetor. Two years later the 1900 Super and 1900 TI Super (also 1900 Super Sprint) with 1975 cc engine were introduced (bore increased to , stroke unchanged). The TI Super had two double carburetors and . Transmission was a 4-speed manual on basic versions and 5-speed manual in Super Sprint version, the brakes were drum brakes. The 1900 had independent front suspension ( double wishbones,

coil spring A selection of conical coil springs The most common type of spring is the coil spring, which is made out of a long piece of metal that is wound around itself. Coil springs were in use in Roman times, evidence of this can be found in bronze Fib ...

s and hydraulic telescopic

shock absorber A shock absorber or damper is a mechanical or hydraulic device designed to absorb and damp shock impulses. It does this by converting the kinetic energy of the shock into another form of energy (typically heat) which is then dissipated. Most sh ...

s) and live rear axle. Production at the company's Milan plant continued until 1959: a total of 21,304 were built, including 17,390 of the saloons.Alfa Romeo Typenhandbuch, Alle Modelle von 1910 bis heute. The chassis was designed specifically to allow

coachbuilder A coachbuilder or body-maker is someone who manufactures bodies for passenger-carrying vehicles.Construction has always been a skilled trade requiring a relatively lightweight product with sufficient strength. The manufacture of necessarily ...

s to rebody it, the most notable of which was the

Zagato Zagato is an independent coachbuilding company and total design centre located northwest of Milan in Terrazzano, a small village near Rho, Lombardy, Italy. The company's premises occupies an area of 23,000 square metres (250,000 sq ft)- 11,000 ...

designed, 1900 Super Sprint coupé, with an improved engine and custom body design. The Alfa Romeo 1900M AR51 (or "Matta") is a four-wheel drive off-road vehicle based on the 1900-series.

Coachbuilt versions

Iginio Alessio, then general manager of Alfa Romeo, was concerned for the viability of the independent Italian Coachbuilding industry–the advent of the unibody chassis design was threatening to put the ''carrozzerie'' out of business. Alessio was also a personal friend of Gaetano Ponzoni co-owner of Carrozzeria Touring Superleggera, thus from 1951-1958 Alfa Romeo built five different variations of the 1900 unibody chassis specifically for independent coachbuilders. Alfa Romeo gave official contracts to Touring to build the sporty 1900 Sprint coupé and to

Pinin Farina Pininfarina S.p.A. (short for Carrozzeria Pininfarina) is an Italian car design firm and coachbuilder, with headquarters in Cambiano, Turin, Italy. The company was founded by Battista "Pinin" Farina in 1930. On 14 December 2015, the Indian ...

to build an elegant four seat Cabriolet and Coupé. The availability of a suitable chassis led to many other coachbuilders to build versions of the 1900. Carrozzeria

built a small series of coupés with the unofficial designation of 1900 SSZ, designed for racing with an aerodynamic lightweight aluminium body and Zagato's trademark double bubble roof. One-off specials where numerous from the famous

Bertone Bertone is an Italian surname meaning "descendant of Roberto". Notable people with the surname include: * Alicia Bertone, American academic, researcher, and veterinary surgeon * Catherine Bertone (born 1972), Turkish-born female Italian marathon r ...

BAT series of aerodynamic studies, to an infamous sci-fi like Astral spider designed by

Carrozzeria Boneschi Carrozzeria Boneschi S.r.L. (established 1919 near Milan) is an Italian coachbuilder, mainly of commercial vehicles. Until 1960, the company was mostly involved with automobile manufacturers such as Talbot, Rolls-Royce, Alfa Romeo, Lancia and Fi ...

for Rafael Trujillo the dictator of the Dominican Republic. There was a Barchetta or "Boat Car" made by

Ghia-Aigle Carrosserie Ghia S.A., Aigle (established 1948 in Aigle, Switzerland, closed 1988) was a Swiss automobile design and manufacturing company, commonly referred to as Ghia-Aigle. Established by P. P. Filippi of Torino, the company originally op ...

Lugano Lugano (, , ; lmo, label=Ticinese dialect, Ticinese, Lugan ) is a city and municipality in Switzerland, part of the Lugano District in the canton of Ticino. It is the largest city of both Ticino and the Italian-speaking southern Switzerland. Luga ...

Switzerland designed by

Giovanni Michelotti Giovanni Michelotti (6 October 1921 – 23 January 1980) was one of the most prolific designers of sports cars in the 20th century. His notable contributions were for Ferrari, Lancia, Maserati and Triumph marques. He was also associated with t ...

at the request of a wealthy Italian who had two passions: the 'Riva' boats and a woman, his mistress, the car has no doors or windscreen wipers. 1955 Alfa Romeo BAT 9

Rally Monte Carlo passeren Amsterdam, Bestanddeelnr 906-2535

Below is a sortable list of coachbuilt Alfa Romeo 1900s.

1954 Alfa Romeo 1900 Sport Spider

In 1954, Alfa Romeo made two spiders and two coupés using similar chassis as the C52 Disco Volante. In Bertone,

Franco Scaglione __NOTOC__ Franco Scaglione (26 September 1916 – 19 June 1993) was an Italian automobile coachwork designer. Biography Franco Scaglione was born in Florence to Vittorio Scaglione, a chief army doctor, and to Giovanna Fabbri, captain of the ...

penned two unique aluminium bodies, a coupé and a spider. The coupé was known as 2000 Sportiva. It weighs and has . The acceleration is on par with most contemporary exotics and top speed is around . Alfa Romeo 2000 Sportiva Goodwood

Engines

IKA Bergantin

Industrias Kaiser Argentina Industrias Kaiser Argentina S.A. (mostly known for its acronym IKA) was an Argentine automobile manufacturer established in 1956 as a joint venture with Kaiser Motors of the United States. Headquartered in Santa Isabel, Córdoba, the automaker ...

produced between 1960 and 1962 a car named IKA Bergantin in Argentina, the body and suspension was from the 1900 Berlina and engines were from the

Willys Willys (pronounced , "Willis" ) was a brand name used by Willys–Overland Motors, an American automobile company, founded by John North Willys. It was best known for its design and production of World War II era and later military jeeps (MBs ...

line, the 4-L and the 6-L .

Gallery of models

File:Alfa Romeo 1900 SS Ghia.jpg, 1900 SS

Ghia Carrozzeria Ghia SpA (established 1916 in Turin) is an Italian automobile design and coachbuilder, coachbuilding firm, established by Giacinto Ghia and Gariglio as "Carrozzeria Ghia & Gariglio". The headquarters are located at Corso Guglielmo Mar ...

(1954) File:Alfa Romeo 1900 C Super Sprint Touring (1954) Classic-Gala 2021 1X7A0157.jpg, 1900 C Super Sprint Touring (1954) File:Alfa 1900.jpg, 1900 C Sprint Touring

Superleggera Superleggera (Italian for ''Superlight'') is a custom tube and alloy panel automobile coachwork construction technology developed by Felice Bianchi Anderloni of Italian coachbuilder Carrozzeria Touring Superleggera. A separate chassis was s ...

File:Alfa-Romeo 1900-SS.JPG, 1900 Super Sprint File:Alfa Romeo 1900C SUPER 1956.jpg, 1900C Super (1956) File:Alfa Romeo 1900 CSS GTS 6 green v TCE.jpg, 1900 CSS

File:ALFA ROMEO 1900 SS ZAGATO.jpg, 1900 SS Zagato File:1955 Alfa Romeo 1900 SSZ Zagato.jpg, 1900 SS Zagato File:55 Alfa Ghia modified.jpg,

Speciale 1900 CSS File:1952 Alfa Romeo 1900C Berlinetta.jpg, 1900C Berlinetta Touring Superleggera (1952) File:Alfa Romeo 1900C 1954 Bristol.jpg, 1900C Touring 1954 File:Alfa Romeo 1900 L (1952).jpg, 1900 L Victoria Cabriolet 1952 Stabilimenti Farina File:Alfa romeo de collection au col du petit saint bernard aout 2011 - panoramio.jpg, 1900 Sprint Cabriolet Pinin Farina (1953) File:1955 Alfa Romeo 1900C SS Cabriolet La Fleche Vignale by Michelotti.jpg, 1900C SS Cabriolet La Fleche Vignale

References

Notes

Bibliography

* *

External links

Alfa Romeo 1900 Register
{{Alfa Romeo Post War

1900 As of March 1 ( O.S. February 17), when the Julian calendar acknowledged a leap day and the Gregorian calendar did not, the Julian calendar fell one day further behind, bringing the difference to 13 days until February 28 ( O.S. February 15), 2 ...

Rear-wheel-drive vehicles Cars introduced in 1950 Sports sedans Coupés Roadsters