Alfa Romeo
The Alfa Romeo Alfasud (Type 901, 902 and 904) is a small family car manufactured and marketed from 1971 to 1989 by Alfa Romeo as a front-engine, four-door, five-passenger entry-level model over a single generation — with facelifts in 1977 and 1980. There was also a two-door sedan, only available in "ti" trim.
Alfa Romeo subsequently introduced a three-door wagon variant, the Giardinetta (1975); two-door coupé, the Alfasud Sprint (1976); three-door hatchback (1981) and finally the five-door hatchback (1982). Assembly was primarily at the Alfa Romeo Pomigliano d'Arco plant, and 893,719 were manufactured from 1972 to 1983, with the addition of 121,434 Sprint coupé versions between 1976 and 1989. Developed by Austrian engineer, Rudolf Hruska, the Alfasud was noted for its boxer engine configuration, low center of gravity, aerodynamic profile, class-leading handling, styling by Giorgetto Giugiaro of ItalDesign, and a conspicuous susceptibility to rust.
From the Wikipedia article Alfa Romeo Alfasud, CC BY-SA.
This is the catalogue record of the Alfa Romeo Alfasud, 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 1971. 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 Alfasud properly it helps to place it in its decade. The 1970s were the decade the oil crises rewired the industry — emissions rules, safety bumpers and fuel economy suddenly mattered as much as horsepower, and Japanese manufacturers went global. 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 Renault Renault 5, the Suzuki Motor Corporation Suzuki Jimny, the BMW BMW 5 Series — the cars a buyer of the period would actually have cross-shopped.
On paper, the Alfa Romeo Alfasud reads like this: the record lists its engine as 1.2 L (1,186 cc) Alfa Romeo Boxer engine / Boxer Flat-four engine / H4 / 1.3 L (1,286 cc) Boxer H4 / 1.4 L (1,350 cc) Boxer H4 / 1.5 L (1,490 cc) Boxer H4; kerb weight is recorded at 810 - (approx.); drive goes through 4-speed manual / 5-speed manual; the layout is Longitudinal front-engine, front-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 1,017,387 units, which makes it one of the industry's true mass-production stories.
Within Alfa Romeo's own catalogue the Alfa Romeo Alfasud 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. It was succeeded by the Alfa Romeo 33 / Alfa Romeo Arna. Design is credited to Giorgetto Giugiaro at Italdesign. Assembly is recorded at Italy: Pomigliano d'Arco Alfa Romeo Pomigliano d'Arco plant / plant, Campania / Malaysia: Shah Alam (Swedish Motor Assemblies) / Malta: Marsa, Malta / Marsa (Car Assembly Ltd) / So.
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 Alfasud 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.
Tap a star. Ratings are kept on your device and feed the most-loved list.
Ownership verdicts are computed from NHTSA complaint and recall records plus EPA economy data, re-priced for your country. Verdicts are published per model year as the data is ingested — browse them live, or open the true-cost calculator to price any year yourself.
Contemporaries from other marques, introduced within three years of this car.