Making light

Alfa Romeo's post-war renaissance began with the 1900 saloon - and matured with Zagato's featherweight coupé version, as Jay Harvey discovers

- Jay Harvey

There's just something special about the raspy blat of an old Alfa twin-cam on cold start. Nothing else has quite that same aural quality, those first hesitant staccato coughs followed by a rising resonant flatulence as the engine catches and tastes air and fuel sucked in from straight carburettors and pushed out through four curving fingers of pipes. Los Angeles-area car collector Bruce Milner beckons me into a leather seat the colour of Lindt chocolate and we snarl away, pretty much as any vintage four-banging Alfa would snarl away but for the rakish red body and the chrome Z on the side.

Why does Alfa Romeo live so large in the beating hearts of enthusiasts? Surely one reason is because none of the other Italian houses have such a deep portfolio. There's an Alfa for everyone, from pre-war 8Cs that run into the millions to 1980s hatchbacks and sedans that trade for a few shekels and a case of beer. At the company's centenary in 2010 it produced a complete catalogue of all its road and racing vehicles that strains a bookshelf at almost 900 pages. Everywhere there is racing, Alfa has raced. Everywhere there is a twisting road, an Alfa has gnawed at its apexes.

Besides being extremely prolific, the Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili was also an equal-opportunity employer for Italy's best designers and coachbuilders. If you love the classic panache of Pininfarina, there are Alfas wearing that famed badge that trade for a fraction of a similar-vintage Ferrari. If your preference runs towards the elegantly modern lines of Bertone, Alfa has you more than covered with cars that came off the same drawing boards as the Miura and the Stratos.