1985 Alfa Romeo 33 1.5 4×4 Enters a New Era

From the February 1985 issue of Car and Driver.

Everybody knows what an Alfa Romeo is, right? A sports car. Italian. Red. Wind at your face and a signorina at your side. So much fun that the excess could be used to light up Schenectady.

Then why is it that an admittedly small but vocal clutch of Eastern metropolitans have spotted this four-door of modest ges­tures, confirmed from its markings that it is an Alfa Romeo, and then poured approv­ing comments on its driver? Fantasies can hardly be made of a sedan that appears to be not sculptured but merely folded—albeit nicely folded—out of sheetmetal. It’s not even red, at least not sports-car red—more like kidney-bean red, which doesn’t count.

So why this fuss over what appears to be an econo-burger? It can’t be that they’ve confused it with the car Warren Beatty drives, because these 33 4x4s aren’t yet for sale in the U.S. Best guess in this office has to do with the Alfa Romeo name—still magic after all these years of reliability complaints and dwindling sales figures. That’s what got us interested; that and the fact that this is the famous Old World mak­er’s attempt at the newest automotive trend, four-wheel drive.

There are, of course, four-wheel-drives, and then there are four-wheel-drives. Those of you thinking Alfa Romeo legend and equating that with Audi Quattro reality need to zero your meters. The 33 4×4 is of a more democratic intent. That’s diplomat­-speak for “a helluva lot cheaper.” Really, we’re talking more along the lines of an Italian Subaru here.

The similarities are extraordinary. The 33 is a rebodied version of the Alfasud, which was born with a flat four-cylinder en­gine located longitudinally in front and driving its front wheels. The free-world brands configured like that can be counted on three fingers: Subaru, Lancia, and now Alfa. From such a drivetrain it’s quite easy to extend a prop shaft out the back of the transmission to energize the rear axle, and this is exactly what Subaru and Alfa Romeo have done. Neither has a differential be­tween the front- and rear-drive systems, and therefore neither can be classed as full-time four-wheel drive. Both can be shifted from two-wheel to four-wheel drive on the go, however, and both manufacturers think that’s plenty good enough for coping with adverse weather.

Going in the goo is Alfa’s expressed goal, that and maybe providing a little bou­tique item for those so inclined. The 33 4×4 has the right gestures in that regard: in­cluded on the identification badge is the symbolic Pininfarina “f.” So, for the lira equivalent of about $9200, you get not one but two famous Italian labels. Partially as­sembled 33s are shipped to Pininfarina for the transformation to four-wheel drive. In addition to adding a two-piece prop shaft and a coil-suspended live rear axle, Pininfarina relocates the fuel tank, raises the trunk floor, and incorporates other mi­nor details. The finished product is imme­diately recognizable as a four-wheel-drive, even if you can’t see the badges, because it rides about an inch higher off the ground. From the front, the standard-equipment headlight wipers give a rather broad clue to Alfa’s intention for the car.

Not that it’s out of its element on dry pavement. There’s room for four in a very Subaru-size package, the engine makes characteristic flat-four, Subaru-like sounds (except for the distinct Alfa snortiness of the exhaust), and the 84 non-emissions­-controlled horsepower produces generally Subaru-like performance. The ride is firm but still carlike. The interior shows a decid­edly artsy touch, particularly in the ar­rangement of the dashboard’s dials and switches, which is a very pleasant change from Subaru strange. The Italians have an amazing ability to walk that fine line be­tween clever and gimmicky. Our only driv­ing complaints have to do with an obstinate shifter—the one-two slot hides itself—and the rather noisy interior, mostly due to the exhaust. Track testing also revealed a ten­dency to lock up the right-rear wheel in hard stops. To measure the influence of four-wheel drive in this situation, we re­peated our tests in the all-wheel-drive mode and found that there was indeed an anti-lock effect. Stopping distances were shorter by four feet, and the right-rear cor­ner was no longer an early slider.

Right now Alfa has no plans to import this model, but company spokesmen make it clear that, if a groundswell of interest is detected, something could be arranged. We wouldn’t pass this along as a groundswell exactly, but we have noticed that few people bother to tip their hats when we’re strapped into a Subaru.