Alfa Romeo Tipo 33: The Development, Racing and Chassis History - Couverture rigide

McDonough, Ed; Collins, Peter

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 1904788718 ISBN 13 : 9781904788713

Editeur : Veloce Publishing, 2006

A propos du livre

Revue de presse :

Tipo 33s won the World Sports Car Championship twice, making the dominant Ferraris and Porches mighty nervous. This book is the first to record their development and competition history. '...although co-writer Peter Collins and I had been committed to the idea for some three years and had been studiously gathering material on the Trenta Tre, often feeling it might have been easier to find, explain and build a replica of the Holy Grail' Success has many fathers, and so the reason so little has been written about this very successful car is largely because it is so difficult to sort out the validity of the conflicting claims by the various entities behind its success - the maker, Alfa Romeo; the engineer, Carlo Chiti; the racing organisation, Autodelta - as to who did what when how. Created in the mid-1960s, among the race cars of its day the Tips33 is of course not alone in having little of its precise development history written down at the time but during its 10-year tenure it did see an uncommonly large number of drastic changes, partly in response to a commensurately large number of changes in racing regulations and technology. Chassis type 105.33 started out as a 2L V8 prototype, morphed into a 3L V12, and ended as a turbocharged 2.1L V12, all using different frames. Various concept cars were based on that chassis as well as the Stradale road car, all included here. One name, many models - big topic then. In their Introduction, the authors discuss the difficulties of distilling the one true story out of the multitude of accounts and turning the spotty history into a definitive, reference-level account. The book is that indeed, and well written to boot. They interviewed many T33 drivers, two of whom wrote Forewords - Nanni Galli and Teddy Pilette. Such first-hand accounts add, of course, depth but they too show that there is a considerable spectrum of opinion. The one thing this thorough book shies away from is an attempt at individual chassis histories. A second volume may tackle that - if ever sufficient alacrity can be achieved as to chassis plates which, in some cases, even Alfa itself is known to have moved from car to car with no concern for record-keeping. This bit of minutia is not critical to the story the authors set forth here and the only people who will lose sleep over this are buyers and sellers of these increasingly valuable cars whose pricing is affected by provenance and race history. For this first book, the authors required three different pieces of evidence to corroborate race claims. Photos play a great role in this and the Acknowledgements list a great number of people who helped in this regard. McDonough, who was a race driver - in fact in the very series and at the very time the T33 competed - also specialises in track testing and can therefore offer relevant driving impressions of several restored T33 models here. Collins, a motoring journalist and photographer, took most of the photos of these road tests. Both authors have published widely on sports cars, and not only Italian ones, which is always helpful for having a large frame of reference. The photographic record is extensive with over 400 images (none credited), well reproduced and properly captioned. Many more photos ended up on the proverbial cutting room floor and some of the particularly interesting ones were bundled into a six-page section of random un-captioned shots at the back of the book.. ...In the canon of Alfa Rome literature this book takes an important place. Writing it was a labor of love for the authors and they claim, rightly so, that it contains the 'sum of the word's knowledge' on this important model. If all you know of the 1970s sports car racing is the Ford/Ferrari wars, this book will broaden horizons. --speed-readers.info

From the earliest 1964 prototype to the T33/TT12s which took Alfa to victory in the ailing --Review by Chris Savill for Alfa Romeo Owner's Club magazine, February 2006

From the earliest 1964 prototype to the T33/TT12s which took Alfa to victory in the ailing World Sportscar Championship in 1977, via the Stradale road car and a variety of concept cars from the likes of Pininfarina and Bertone, it's all here. A wealth of images fills the pages, and co-author McDonough has even provided driving impressions of several variations on the theme. Memories and fascinating anecdotes from Autodelta drivers and copious references to contemporary reports punctuate the text, and there are comprehensive factual appendices. It's sub-titled 'The development and racing history,' and it doesn't stint on either aspect. - Review from MotorSport, August 2006

What an excellent book! The amount of research that has gone into this work is amazing. The Tipo 33 story is relatively recent history but nobody has attempted such a comprehensive book before because of the politics involved and the fact that you really have to be in Italy to correlate the views of the surviving characters. The competition history is thorough though the lap by lap account can be a bit wearying for the reader. However, the full story needs to be told to form the basis of planned future works on the Tipo 33 by the authors. Veloce have done a superb job on the book design and the quality and quantity of period pictures is awesome. A chapter deals with the exotic concept cars based on the Tipo 33 and a serious attempt has been made to list all the chassis numbers. Don't try and read this book through on one sitting. Put it down occasionally, take your time and absorb the story. --Review by Phil Ward for Auto Italia, April 2006

Here, at last, is the definitive book on Alfa's sports racing prototypes of 1967-1977. From the original 2.0 litre class contending V8 T33 of 1967, through the final 3.0 litre V8 T33/TT/3 of 1972 to the world championship winning 3.0 litre flat-12 cars of 1975 and 1977, the authors unfold a story of promise, disappointment and ultimate triumph. It is a story of larger than life characters, of engineers, of Autodelta and Team VDS, of over one hundred drivers and of personal recall as so little was written down at the time. Consequently, writing this book provided an exceptional challenge in separating fact from fiction, hearsay from thinly recorded detail and claims from counter claims. The authors are rightly cautious on matters of authenticity but this in no way detracts from their findings which are the result of the studious gathering of material over several years. As Ed McDonough writes in the introduction: it might have been easier to find, explain and build a replica of the Holy Grail! This 250mm square book offers the reader 224 pages and over 400 black and white and colour photographs. The text is taught and easy to read while the photo selection, which mixes period colour with black and white, is bound to have you thumbing through and reaching for your wallet. Many of the pictures have not been published before and they add to the overall freshness of the book. After an opening chapter given to setting the scene for Alfa Romeo s return to sports prototype racing, each year from 1967 to 1977 receives a separate chapter tracing the development and race history of the different models. The chapter headings for these years are in themselves a catalogue of the highs and lows while their content avoids being merely a lap by lap, race by race account as the authors take the reader behind the scenes with observations and driver memories. Driving the Cars is a major chapter in the book as the authors have been fortunate enough to drive and photograph several versions. This allows them to examine the construction, history and behaviour of these individual cars more fully. The book also takes in the 33's most famous offspring, the Stradale, along with the numerous concept cars for which the 33 formed the basis. The book closes with a string of appendices covering the competition record year by year, including the limited competition appearances of the Stradale, the whereabouts of existing cars and a list of drivers. Certain anomalies and explanations, which otherwise might appear as footnotes in each chapter, are also grouped together in another appendix. A novel feature is a six page photo gallery of rare and unusual photos closing the book. These are sometimes of lesser quality or for other reasons were not incorporated into the main body of text but are nevertheless of considerable interest. They are presented in montage form to accommodate the different sizes, and captions on each photo might have spoilt the overall visual appeal. Nevertheless I was left wanting each picture to be numbered with a page of captions at the end; perhaps taking one page of the three devoted to advertising other books from the Veloce stable! The fact that the authors know and love their subject matter shines through the text and leaves you wanting more. Well, you may be in luck as Peter and Ed have stated their intention to write a second volume detailing the individual history of as many cars as possible. --- Review by Chris Savill for Alfa Romeo Owner's Club magazine, February 2006

Biographie de l'auteur :

Ed McDonough was born in the USA but has lived in the UK and France for many years. He has raced saloons, sports cars and single seaters from the late 1950s, and took part in the World Championship Sports car Races in the 1970s at a time when the Alfa Romeo Tipo 33s were competing. He was UK Chairman of the Alfa Romeo Owners Club for 10 years, and was European Editor of Vintage Racecar Journal, as well as contributing to Autocollezioni , Auto Italia, Porsche Post and other journals. Ed still competes in historic races and is Track Tester for online motoring magazine Retro-Speed, specialising in some of the rarest and most exotic historic racing cars.

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Veloce Publishing
• Date d'édition: 2006
• ISBN 10: 1904788718
• ISBN 13: 9781904788713
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 224