The second most visually arresting thing in 1967’s ‘The Graduate’, the Alfa Romeo Duetto Spider is surely one of the most beautiful cars ever made.
Costing the same as a Jaguar E-Type, early Spiders were fantastically expensive for a 1.6 litre 108 bhp 4-cylinder, but none of that mattered when they looked this good.
Marco Q thinks so too, having constructed this glorious early Duetto Spider, with opening doors, hood and trunk, working steering, and a brick-built recreation of the stunning mid-’60s Pininfarina styling.
There’s much more of Marco’s beautifully presented Alfa Romeo Duetto to see at his photostream, where further top quality images are available, and you can click the link above to graduate.
’60s Italy was, in the mind of this TLCB Writer, the peak of automotive cool. The Vespa, the Fiat 500, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Lancia, and – of course – Alfa Romeo.
This glorious 1965 Alfa Romeo Giulia Sprint GTA takes us back to Italy’s golden era, having been wonderfully recreated in brick form by 5eno of Flickr.
A realistic interior is accessed through opening doors, a brilliantly detailed engine resides under the opening hood, and there are more images of the model to see at 5eno’s Alfa Romeo Giulia Sprint album.
Head back to ’60s Italy via the link in the text above, when every vehicle was infinite cool.
This is the Alfa Romeo Carabo, it’s just one letter short of being a Thai energy drink / some kind of cow, and it’s mad.
Designed by Bertone and revealed in 1968, the Carabo ushered in the change from swoopy and beautiful, to weird and wedgy. Just one concept was built, powered by a V8 of just two litres capacity mated to a six speed manual gearbox.
This excellent Speed Champions recreation of the Carabo was suggested to us by a reader, and it comes from The G Brix of Flickr. Complete with a detailed interior and engine bay there’s more to see at Brix’s photostream via the link.
This is an Alfa Romeo Giulia Sprint GTA, and we don’t think we’ve ever wanted a car more.
Built by Zeta Racing, this incredible recreation of Alfa Romeo’s brilliant ’60s sports saloon has jumped right to the top of the list for Best Creation of 2021, with a depth of engineering that is amongst the most advanced that this site has ever featured.
Inside the fantastically well-executed exterior, which captures the Giulia Sprint GTA in Technic form with almost unbelievable realism, is one of the finest Technic Supercar chassis yet built.
Alongside all-wheel suspension and a working 4-cylinder engine, Zeta’s model includes a Power Functions drivetrain that not only delivers remote control drive and steering, but also a motorised sequential gearbox and – amazingly – working brakes with callipers that genuinely squeeze the discs when activated via an on-board pneumatic compressor.
It’s a phenomenal piece of engineering, wrapped in one of the most brilliant Technic bodies we’ve ever seen, which also includes beautifully accurate period-correct decals, and a wonderfully detailed interior too.
There’s much more to see of Zeta’s jaw-dropping Alfa Romeo Giulia Sprint GTA at his photostream via the link above, were a wealth of stunning imagery is available to view. Click the link above to join us viewing perhaps the best Technic creation of the last few years.
The Lego Car Blog Elves aren’t allowed to play Grand Theft Auto. Having a tendency to enact whatever it is they’ve most recently seen, playing a game based upon wanton destruction would only add to their already violent disposition, and we have enough tidying up to do already.
Fortunately today’s GTA has nothing to do with that long-running – and admittedly very good fun – video game, but rather this brilliant Speed Champions style Alfa Romeo Giulia GTA, as built by TLCB debutant PleaseYesPlease. Neat decals and a trademark yellow nose make Please’s GTA a properly good homage to the original ’60s sports car, and there’s more to see of their Giulia GTA on Flickr.
Click the link above to take a look, whilst we jack a car, blow up a security truck, and go on a rampage.
Italy and Germany have a long rivalry. Two of the best football teams in Europe, they’ve met 35 times, with Italy winning 15 of those encounters to Germany’s 8. They’ve fought on the track since Formula 1’s beginning (and even before that), with Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union battling Alfa Romeo and later Ferrari for dominance. Oh, and they fought against one another in World War 2, but only after Italy overthrew racism and changed sides.
Recently though, all the victories have been German. Mercedes-Benz have annihilated Ferrari in Formula 1, Italy haven’t beaten Germany in their last four soccer matches, and Ducati are now owned by Volkswagen.
However, go back to the mid-’90s and you’ll find a remarkable story of Italian dominance in Germany’s own back yard; the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters (DTM).
In 1993 Alfa Romeo decided to take their new 155 V6 to DTM, building an all-wheel-drive 11,000rpm Class 1 Touring Car to take on the domestic German teams from Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Opel. The car proved unstoppable, with Nicola Larini winning a record eleven of the twenty-two races and teammate Alessandro Nannini another two, taking Alfa Romeo to a dominant manufacturer’s title.
This incredible replica of the ’93 championship-winning Alfa Romeo 155 V6 Ti comes from previous bloggee Zeta Racing of Flickr, who has recreated both the car and its iconic livery in stunning detail.
Underneath that beautifully stickered exterior Zeta has accurately constructed the 155’s drivetrain, including a jaw-dropping V6 engine, all-wheel-drive system, working suspension, gearbox, and a suite of Power Functions motors to control it all remotely.
A spectacularly detailed interior is included behind the four opening doors, with a bucket seat and racing harnesses, a full roll cage, and even the 155’s fire suppression system replicated in bricks.
Zeta Racing’s creation is a work of art (as any Alfa Romeo should be) and there’s a huge gallery of images available to view at his photostream on Flickr. Click the link above to remember a time when the Italians beat the Germans at their own game, and here to see (and hear!) the 155 DTM’s 11,500rpm V6 in action way back in ’93.
The Alfa Romeo 4C is not a good car. But it is gorgeous, so we still want one, if only to look at it. It’s also one of Alfa Romeo’s many recent failures, partly because the car wasn’t very good, and partly because these days buyers only seem to want an angry German saloon car with a twin-turbo V8, six million horsepower, and no driving feel or real-world relevance whatsoever.
Which is a mighty shame, because it means lightweight, small sports cars like the admittedly mediocre 4C and the thoroughly brilliant Alpine A110 are bombing commercially, and soon all we’ll have is angry German saloons.
This fantastic Model Team Alfa Romeo 4C comes from previous bloggee Noah_L, who has created one the most beautiful (and difficult to replicate) modern automotive shapes to near perfection from fairly basic LEGO parts. In fact the two flex tubes that form the bonnet and grille may be the neatest solution to the 4C’s shape that we have seen yet, and a technique we think we’ll start to see on all sorts of Lego cars in the future.
Noah’s model also includes a detailed interior behind the opening doors and an accurate recreation of the mid-mounted 1750cc turbocharged 4-cylinder engine under the rear hatch, and there are loads more stunning images to view at his Alfa Romeo 4C album on Flickr. Click the link above to take a look, which – to be honest – is all the actual 4C is really for anyway.
This ridiculously pretty model of a ridiculously pretty car comes from Jonathan Elliott of Flickr. It’s an Alfa Romeo Giulia GTA, built between 1965 and ’69 and fitted with Alfa Romeo’s advanced twin-cam 1600cc engine and aluminium bodywork. This cleverness made the GTA a brilliant racer, but even if it wasn’t we’d still want one because look at it! See more of Jonathan’s 6-wide recreation of Alfa Romeo’s high-point at the link above.
‘Scuderia Ferrari’ have been around longer than you might think…
Founded by Enzo Ferrari in 1929, Scuderia Ferrari were winning races decades before their own cars would wear the famous prancing horse shield. The young Italian began his career driving for Alfa Romeo in 1920, winning the Coppa Acerbo in 1924. By 1929 Enzo took a step back from racing himself to manage the Alfa Romeo team, which became known as Scuderia Ferrari and wore the crest of Enzo’s friend Count Francesco Baracca, a logo which has now become synonymous with Ferrari cars.
Enzo’s partnership with Alfa Romeo gave his team access to the best racing car of the era, the glorious eight-cylinder supercharged P3, and they translated this into a string of victories. However by 1938 Alfa Romeo wanted to race under their own name, and an unhappy Enzo decided to leave to build his own cars. Mussolini had other ideas though, and racing was duly halted during the kerfuffle whilst Enzo’s factory was converted to build military tooling.
After the war ended Enzo Ferrari finally got the chance to build and race his own car under his own name, and… Alfa Romeo won absolutely everything – in 1950 Enzo’s Italian rivals won all eleven races. However in 1951 the unbelievable happened; the ex-driver-turned-manager beat his old team, winning the 1951 British Grand Prix and becoming the first team to break Alfa Romeo’s dominance in over a year.
Ferrari would compete in every Formula 1 Championship thereafter, making them the only team in the sport’s history to do so, whilst the once mighty Alfa Romeo exited Formula 1 just a year later.
This wonderful diorama containing one of Scuderia Ferrari’s first race-winning cars (even though it’s not actually a Ferrari) comes from previous bloggee and TLCB regular PixelJunkie, whose stunning recreation of the Alfa Romeo P3 – complete with Scuderia Ferrari crest – is one of the finest mini-figure scale vintage racing cars we’ve seen. There’s more to see of this Ferrari-before-Ferrari on Flickr at Pixel’s photostream – head back to the early 1930s via the link above.
This is the 1978 Brabham BT46, designed by the legendary Gordon Murray and powered by an Alfa Romeo flat-12 engine, and it was amongst the front runners of the 1978 Formula 1 World Championship, securing a Constructors third place for the Brabham team.
The BT46 won two races in the ’78 season, but its win at the Swedish Grand Prix is one of the most unusual in the sport. You see this is the BT46 ‘B’, a design which raced only once, and which won by over half a minute.
Designed to take on the ‘ground effect’ Lotuses, Murray engineered an engine-powered fan to literally suck the car to the ground. Whilst it was claimed at the time the fan was used to cool the Alfa Romeo flat-12, it became obvious what its true purpose was when the drivers revved the engine, as the BT46B visibly squatted down on the track.
Effectively a reverse hovercraft, the Brabham BT46B dominated the field, which of course meant that like other ingenious developments in Formula 1, it was immediately banned. Because Formula 1 sucks.
The BT46B was never allowed to race in Formula 1 again and Brabham were forced to revert to their non fan-assisted variant, however TLCB regular and Master MOCer Luca Rusconi (aka RoscoPC) remembers one of Formula 1’s cleverest designs with his stunning Lego replica of the one-race-wonder.
Added to his ever growing portfolio of historic racing cars on Flickr, Luca’s BT46B includes working steering, suspension, a flat-12 engine, and – of course – a working fan. There’s lots more to see at Luca’s Flickr Album – click this link if you’re a fan.
Is there a more disappointing automotive brand than Alfa Romeo? We’re going to say no, and the disappointment started with this car.
Launched in 1966, the pretty Pininfarina-designed Alfa Romeo Spider was at the cutting edge of sports car engineering. A twin-cam engine, 5-speed gearbox, and disc brakes all featured, and whilst the Alfa cost nearly as much as an E-Type Jaguar, it found plenty of buyers willing to spend a bit to drive something so gorgeous.
And then Alfa Romeo just kept making it. And making it. And making it. The final Series 4 version of the car (pictured here) was released in 1990, thirty-six years after the Series 1 debuted, wearing a stupid 1990s bodykit and featuring tail-lights robbed from the 164 sedan.
The striking GTV finally replaced the Spider in 1995, but it was a flash in the pan moment for a brand that had traded on the past glories of its badge for far too long. Years of automotive drivel followed, mostly re-badged Fiats in pretty dresses – which wasn’t a good starting point, and Alfa Romeo seemed on the verge of disappearing altogether.
But now something remarkable has happened. Alfa Romeo are back. And not just with a Fiat in a pretty dress. The new Guilia sedan and Stelvio (whisper it)… SUV are receiving properly good reviews, and could finally be the saviours of the brand that we’ve been awaiting for so long. So cross your fingers, and your toes, and try to forget about cars like the Series 4 Spider.
Oh, we nearly forgot! This excellent Model Team recreation of the Series 4 comes from previous bloggee Andre Pinto, and there’s more to see at his photostream by clicking here.
Long time readers (and probably even short time readers) will have worked out that this is not a classy blog. However every so often we put on a shirt, leave the decaying ruin that is TLCB Towers, and sit in a real restaurant to eat something that actually came out of the ground. With metal cutlery and everything.*
Anyhoo, this is one of those moments, as this could well be the classiest creation that we’ve published all year. Built by marthart of Brickshelf it’s a 1932 Alfa Romeo Spider, and it’s absolutely gorgeous. It also has a working engine, steering, leaf spring suspension, and opening doors and hood.
There’s more to see at marthart’s Brickshelf account via the link above. Put on a tie and join us there.
*As opposed to staying in the office eating Sugar Puffs straight from the bag again.
Red has produced a monster-sized vintage racing car. Loosely based on a 1932 Alfa Romeo, this car has the aerodynamic streamlining that was all the fashion at the time smooth built in bricks. It also features working steering and an engine that uses so many ray-guns as greebles that it could almost be part of sci-fi SHIPtember.
Red has included multiple views in his uploads but we really liked the straight profile shots, which are an unusual way to present a MOC. Click this link to Flickr to more views and under the bonnet or click this link to hear the song that we stole today’s title from. Meanwhile, here’s the left profile:
You don’t need ten thousand bricks to appear on The Lego Car Blog. Around one hundred is plenty, as proven by Flickr’s Johnni with the lovely 1946 Alfa Romeo 6C Freccia d’ora pictured above, and Robert4168 with his superbly inventive micro-scale ‘Buccaneer’s Dread’ pirate ship. See more of each via the links.
Is this the most difficult rear-end to make from Lego? Well apart from this one obviously. It’s the work of Alexander Paschoaletto, and you can see more of his Alfa Romeo Brera on MOCpages here.
