Alfa Romeo
The Alfa Romeo 33 (Type 905 and 907) is a small family car produced by the Italian automaker Alfa Romeo from 1983 to 1995. From a mechanical standpoint it was an evolution of its predecessor, the Alfasud, whose floorpan, chassis and drivetrain were carried over — albeit with simplifications to the suspension and braking system, eschewing the Alfasud's inboard front brakes for instance. The Nissan-based Alfa Romeo Arna was launched shortly thereafter, offering a similarly sized but lower priced car.
The 33 has a unique place in Alfa Romeo history, as nearly 1 million of these cars were produced. During its 11-year lifespan the 33 got a minor facelift in 1986 and a major restyle in 1989. The 33 was discontinued in 1995 and replaced by the Alfa Romeo 145 and 146, which used the same Alfa Romeo Boxer engines but an entirely new platform based on the Fiat Tipo.
From the Wikipedia article Alfa Romeo 33, CC BY-SA.
This is the catalogue record of the Alfa Romeo 33, one of 194 models Alfa Romeo has placed in the historical record and one of more than seventeen thousand cars the MotorJury library tracks. The record places its introduction in 1983. The photography on this page is hotlinked from Wikimedia Commons under an open licence, with the photographer credited on every frame.
To read the Alfa Romeo 33 properly it helps to place it in its decade. The 1980s were the decade of turbocharging, electronic fuel injection and the first mass digital engine management — Group B rallying and hot hatches defined its performance culture. Any car launched into that world was shaped by it — by what materials, engineering and regulation allowed, and by what buyers of the day demanded. Its direct contemporaries in this catalogue, introduced within three years of it, include the Peugeot Peugeot 205, the Toyota Toyota 4Runner, the Fiat Fiat Uno — the cars a buyer of the period would actually have cross-shopped.
On paper, the Alfa Romeo 33 reads like this: the record lists its engine as Petrol engine / petrol: / 1.2 L Alfa Romeo Boxer engine / Boxer Flat-four engine / H4 / 1.4 L Boxer H4 / 1.5 L Boxer H4 / 1.7 L Boxer H4 / 1.7 L Boxer Mult; kerb weight is recorded at 890 –; drive goes through 5-speed manual; the layout is Longitudinal front-engine, front-wheel-drive/four-wheel-drive. Every figure above is a manufacturer specification carried by the Wikipedia infobox or the open Wikidata record for this model — nothing on this page is estimated, and where a source is silent the row simply does not appear. Production is recorded at 989,324 units, which makes it a solid production run.
Within Alfa Romeo's own catalogue the Alfa Romeo 33 sits alongside the A.L.F.A 12 HP, the A.L.F.A 15 HP, the A.L.F.A 15-20 HP, the A.L.F.A 24 HP. The record names the Alfa Romeo Alfasud / Alfa Romeo Arna as its predecessor and the Alfa Romeo 145 and 146 as its successor, fixing its place in the model line's chronology. Design is credited to Ermanno Cressoni at Centro Stile Alfa Romeo / Pininfarina (estate). Assembly is recorded at Italy: Pomigliano d'Arco plant, Campania / Italy: Pininfarina Grugliasco plant, Piedmont / South Africa: Rosslyn, Brits (Alfa Romeo SA (Pty) Ltd).
This library is generated, verified and rebuilt from the open record on every deploy. The catalogue skeleton comes from Wikidata, specifications from Wikipedia's infoboxes under CC BY-SA, photography from Wikimedia Commons under each file's own licence, and the ownership data from United States federal safety records. Nothing is written by hand and nothing is invented: every fact on this page traces to a public source, and every page is rebuilt nightly as those sources improve. Errors in the source record will appear here too — and disappear the night the source is corrected.
The catalogue records what the Alfa Romeo 33 was; the ownership database records what it is like to own. MotorJury computes a verdict for every model year the United States federal record covers — complaints, recalls, real economy — refreshed nightly, with no opinions involved. If this car reached the American market, its verdicts are in there.
Specifications come from the Wikipedia infobox for this model (CC BY-SA) and the open Wikidata record, and are shown only where a source actually carries them — nothing here is estimated. Figures are manufacturer specifications, not measured results.
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Contemporaries from other marques, introduced within three years of this car.