Real Road Test: Alfa Romeo Alfasud Sprint Veloce!

and away crows [Music] in this video i'm putting alfa romeo alpha sprint veloce through its paces this should be good so to be specific this is a 1981 sprint veloce and uh the alfa romeo alpha sud had been introduced in 1971. with its famous reputation for rusting uh built um i think it was down in naples in the south of italy in a new factory which is why it was called the alpha sud it simply stands for alpha south but a very very pretty body on these coupes by uh giugitto giugiaro one of my favorite stylists and it's just very very of its time i think very 1970s so actually a bit of an an acronym by um 1981 we've got chrome bumpers and stuff it's very very 1970s but lovely delicate script here say alpha certain as a sprint of veloce and 1.5 being the size of its boxer engine yes boxer this is not a very conventional car but it is you know the latest in a long line of very pretty alfa romeo coupe is based on their saloons and hatchbacks uh it's a long line goes about julietas julia's there's so many gorgeously pretty um little alfa romeos because alfa romeo really existed to prove that you didn't have to have an out and out sport car and loads of money to have fun they were always affordable they were always fairly small 1.3 1.5 engines so the fact this is only a 1.5 don't let it detract you this is going to be an awful lot of fun let's start having a look under the um pretty little bonnet first of all where we shall find out some interesting facts so here is the engine that unusual boxer layout we've got the alternator nice and proud here at the top and then two cylinders each side but look how short it is um that's the advantage of these cars you get four cylinders front wheel drive without having to hang a straight four out the front ultimately transverse layouts became preferable but boxers certainly have their advantages 1500 cc this one's had a few tweaks different exhaust on it and i believe it's a single carburetor under this air filter case here interestingly the last time i saw one of these was under the bonnet of a datsun because alpha romeo and datsun had a partnership which resulted in the alfa romeo anna and the datsun cherry europe using the cherry body shell but with the entire front end suspension engine the lot of the alpha sud i hope to try one because they're an intriguing prospect you have to wonder what on earth they were thinking but the brakes are not where you can see them the brakes are inboard on the side of the gearbox it's all tucked under all this um reminds me of my citroen gsa which of course is another flat four engine front-wheel drive car but lancia had one as well entirely separate to this alfa romeo they also had flat four engines in the flavia i think it was in the later 2000 uh that ended with the fiat takeover but uh the bonnet has this little stay here which you must encourage up and then you gently lay the bonnet down and then you head inside where you press these delicate little handles look at that beautiful just making sure we're clearing the curb and then you push this lever down to lock the bonnet into place that's absolutely delightful very like a a jaguar xjs in fact but we are in so we can behold the mighty brown interior gorgeous velour going on i'm liking this a lot and we jump behind the steering wheel which i haven't quite managed to get straight sorry try and do that there we go nice and straight uh not an original steering wheel but really does look the path a bit of momo action going on um clear concise dials i love the fact the oil has just been turned through 90 degrees the oil warning light yeah it's a very fine example eyeball vents so you get plenty of fresh areas you're driving along got these intriguing ones which you can either defrost the up to the windscreen or you can turn them around and they blast air into the car that's assuming you can fathom out what's going on with the heater controls which i will get to no radio you don't need one the engine's musical and look it's a sprint just to remind you but yeah it's it's lovely in here the seats are very comfortable um very nice and supportive the driving position yes those pedals are skewed um look where they are compared to the steering wheel but you've got to get around that wheel arch intrusion somewhere somehow rather and it doesn't feel as bad as in a right-hand drive car i don't think plus the wheel arch makes natural place to rest your clutch foot we must take in the controls because they are insane so we'll put the ignition on so we've got indicators that lovely noise much as you'd expect really a flasher is there if you want to be italian and flash people out of the way uh lights is it twist the upside there we go so that's how you turn the lights on and it warns you there that's all well and good over here wiper stalk so you think oh that's going to be nice and conventional and sure enough if we press the end of the wiper stalk we get we get some washers going on so how do you operate the wipers well you actually turn the stalk so there we go oh dear we've got some bit of a triangle of doom going on there it's not too bad but it could be worse could be better rather but what else does a stalk do well if you pull it towards you that's where your horn is a very good horn because it's an italian car and if you put it down the heater comes on that that's amazing it's not what you expect at all nor do you expect the key to be over here that's throwing me somewhat but look at that rev counter doesn't even start going red until six and a half thousand revs i'm gonna have some fun i think the gear lever has seen better days it's worn um beautiful look at that patternation absolutely marvellous but um it's it's a bit clunky it kind of reminds me of my gsa it's a little more torture than that but it's very very similar of that vibe now we should probably have a jump into the rear i haven't tried this yet i'm going to assume it's that lever oh yeah there we go and we're in jump into the back very sculpted seats going on and we're in and i've just noticed this little detail oh oh i didn't know that i did not know that the rear window actually winds down a bit so you get some ventilation i had no idea that's what i love about doing these road tests you i learned things as well so it's not the easiest i can see why we normally have levers for doing this job but that's amazing but uh yeah there's no there's not much headroom um there's probably just about enough leg room i'm very full down back so i get trapped yeah there we go it's comfy enough for a sporty little hatchback i'm not going to complain too much about that i hope i can get out again and there we go and uh oh yeah there are easier cars to get interactive to back off but that's not too bad um but i want to take a moment just to take in these vents so that's the vents to load a full throw full through ventilation so air comes out the vents pushes out the back of the car that's a lovely touch um there must be a way of opening this boot lid oh here you go that's how you open the boot little lever down there and then this hatch should pop up and somehow isn't oh no there we go and then under here there is a cavernous boot uh it's difficult to really convey how big that boot is so maybe i'll get in and uh oh oh there we go i bet chris didn't imagine this would be happening uh i'm not in the boot so it is a good size you can get plenty in here just found jack is stored in here and there's a beautiful floor it has been repainted but there is not one spot of rust on this car it was a german market car it's now registered in spain because that's where the owner has his second home and he regularly uses this car for driving from here to spain but without further ado i think we should go for a drive right if you're ready i'll fire up the beast you've got a sports exhaust on it custom manifolds it sounds superb there are a few other mods you may have noticed it's got quite a bit of negative camber on the front it's been lowered stiffened i think the front might have been softened slightly actually but um it sounds hilarious so let's go oh yes oh this definitely feels italian suspension is quite firm and a bit crashy it's not necessarily my cup of tea but that is exhaust popping away as we come off that's uh hilarious what a hilarious car this is so i love the alpha suds um because they are so very very different i mean i suppose back in the day maybe they weren't so different there were lots of manufacturers all doing different things what was the best way to do front wheel drive fiat ultimately triumphed with its gearbox on end that was the way everyone else went but uh boxers had their favor and it is because they are so short effectively only two cylinders long so go for a second oh that's very funny the traffic levels less funny we've got a bit of brake squeal going on i think it's got um ebc yellow stuff pads in so they're a bit hard and squealy but that means they perform superbly well pedal needs a good shove but uh yeah they're good brakes yeah i just love this i mean other markets didn't really go in for this so much i mean sure peugeot had some very pretty little coupes and but they weren't sports cars this this feels like a tiny sports car uh it wants to be like it's um more exotic um stable mates from italy he wants to be a ferrari or a lamborghini the exhaust sounds immense all the funded affair we're only doing 40 miles now oh yeah and even though we're only doing 30 in a 30 limit but i know this road gets a bit more entertaining i hope they haven't slapped speed limits over it since i last came down here but yeah the driving position i'm quite surprised by i was expecting to find my legs feeling more cramped as is the italian way but uh i guess i tend to like the longer arm but oh there we go oh it does like to rev oh the owner said it likes to rev he was not wrong but i'm going to do the window back up again now just to quieten down things a bit yeah that really does but he says it's great for driving back and forth to spain and despite the fact we're doing almost 4000 revs at an indicated 110 kilometers an hour the engine is very very smooth by its nature the flat fours tend to be they spin well so he says it doesn't get um upsetting at all sharp bend said design it was right always getting a bit bumpy along here but we'll go for the overtake anyway yeah this feels great the steering is amazing i just adored this whole concept why shouldn't people with small cars be allowed to have fun oh yeah finding the limits along here of that suspension it is a bit on the firm side it's not the most comfortable but uh you pay for that in the bends where it um just sticks a bit of suspension work really does go a long way um hub nut is not against modifying cars at all uh at times it can definitely be used to your advantage and uh i think the owner's proving that with this car i don't even need to downshift it's got mid-range grunt this is the one thing the citroen gs and gsa never had they never had that much power i don't know what power this is putting out but uh i'm trying to remember from the specs it's somewhere around 85 90 break horseback considerably more than the gsa which never had more than 70 i don't think and this car belongs to the same chap who's got that alpine that i drove in a recent video a man of um very fine taste stuck behind the bmw remember when bmw's used to be fast cars well maybe we'll just take a different road then oh it's a very usable amount of power you know i was having to give it all the beans up that hill oh hang on in the benz oh it feels so good i'm not talking too much because i'm just having the time of my life good to have some good breaks under you when you're driving this quickly and away crows oh this is so much fun so much fun but the speed isn't actually ridiculous that's the good thing about this this is a fizzy little family hatchback you could use this for popping to the shops but you can have a lot of fun on the way without having to go ridiculously fast so for a country where the speed limit is more often than not 60 on roads like this absolutely bob on right not to 100 bit of torque steer [Music] and that's finally a hundred so it's not actually that rapid but it just feels so much fun it feels so alive i'm wearing the perfect top for this i'm wearing my power less is more top and this car is proving you don't need more than 100 brake horsepower in a road car to have an absolute riot look how quickly we're catching up the modern folk well as you can probably tell i really enjoyed that that definitely lives up to the slogan that power less is more available at hub.org we've ever find merchandise but yeah that that's just a great little package it's so much fun so entertaining and a few little mods have really just made it even better so thank you very much for watching don't forget you can head to the store if you wish and subscribe if you wish and do check out the hub notes channel the sister channel where you'll find behind the scenes vlogs and that sort of thing i'll look forward to seeing you in a future video farewell yes [Music] you

Channel: HubNut

Views: 58,628

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Id: pFFya4YXYMQ

Length: 17min 42sec (1062 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 22 2021