25th-Apr-20, 07:37 PM
Back in the 60,70 and 80's, South Africa had a thriving racing scene, and besides having The Le Mans cars visiting, its own F1 series with almost current F1's at the time, SA had a massive local rivalry between the big manufacturers at the time - BMW, Alfa Romeo,Datsun, Mazda, Volkswagen and Ford .
The Rivalry was so big at the time, that the manufacturers had cars specially modified for racing, and the sold to us , and one of these was the Alfa GTV6.
In its original form, it had a 2.5L fuel injected motor. The head of Alfa SA asked Autodelta if they could modify the motor to improve performance.
This they duly did and what came back was a design for a 3L version, with 6 weber carbs.This took up more space than was available at the time with a result that a new bonnet was designed with larger airvents at the front to cope with the height requirements of the webers, and adeeper front Airdam.
I am an ALfisti through and through (cant afford Ferrari's) and traded in my 2.5 for the 3L I lived in Swaziland at the time and the car did monthly trips between Swaziland and Johannesburg when we visited family.. The car developed an annoying misfire, that after 2 visits to Alfa still could not be tracked down. They referred me to the Alfa Racing dept, that turned out to be a garage on the west side of Joburg. " brothers were getting the motors in knockdown format and building them. In an hour they diagnosed cracked carbs, and arranged to replace them. We did a few trips to and from Swaziland and on one of the trips back on the huge double highway I was going quite quickly along. In my rear view mirror I could see this Merc sports coming up behind me and the boy racer in me took over and put my foot down. The car came with a limiter at 8.400 RPM, and even though I was travelling at about 240kms per hour, this Merc inexorably caught and passed me... I was miffed to say the least.
When I next took my car in (I was miffed so it was that week) - and told them the story - he just broke down laughing. It was a v8 5.8L merc that had passed me. he looked at me and asked - you want to tweak your car?
I said sure.
When i got it back it had a huge anti roll bar at the rear, lightened steel fly wheel, cosworth pistons, tweaked limiter, beefed up brakes. What an awesome car. Was as quick as a 930 turbo.
Honestly, the best car I ever had.
At the garage in my visits - I met Abel Doliviera, the star of the race below, a fine fine gentleman, and an amazing race driver. who sadly died a while later, when the car transporter he was travelling in back from Cape Town, rolled and he sadly dies.
The Rivalry was so big at the time, that the manufacturers had cars specially modified for racing, and the sold to us , and one of these was the Alfa GTV6.
In its original form, it had a 2.5L fuel injected motor. The head of Alfa SA asked Autodelta if they could modify the motor to improve performance.
This they duly did and what came back was a design for a 3L version, with 6 weber carbs.This took up more space than was available at the time with a result that a new bonnet was designed with larger airvents at the front to cope with the height requirements of the webers, and adeeper front Airdam.
I am an ALfisti through and through (cant afford Ferrari's) and traded in my 2.5 for the 3L I lived in Swaziland at the time and the car did monthly trips between Swaziland and Johannesburg when we visited family.. The car developed an annoying misfire, that after 2 visits to Alfa still could not be tracked down. They referred me to the Alfa Racing dept, that turned out to be a garage on the west side of Joburg. " brothers were getting the motors in knockdown format and building them. In an hour they diagnosed cracked carbs, and arranged to replace them. We did a few trips to and from Swaziland and on one of the trips back on the huge double highway I was going quite quickly along. In my rear view mirror I could see this Merc sports coming up behind me and the boy racer in me took over and put my foot down. The car came with a limiter at 8.400 RPM, and even though I was travelling at about 240kms per hour, this Merc inexorably caught and passed me... I was miffed to say the least.
When I next took my car in (I was miffed so it was that week) - and told them the story - he just broke down laughing. It was a v8 5.8L merc that had passed me. he looked at me and asked - you want to tweak your car?
I said sure.
When i got it back it had a huge anti roll bar at the rear, lightened steel fly wheel, cosworth pistons, tweaked limiter, beefed up brakes. What an awesome car. Was as quick as a 930 turbo.
Honestly, the best car I ever had.
At the garage in my visits - I met Abel Doliviera, the star of the race below, a fine fine gentleman, and an amazing race driver. who sadly died a while later, when the car transporter he was travelling in back from Cape Town, rolled and he sadly dies.
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