Alfa Romeo is an Italian automobile manufacturing company, founded as "Darracq Italiana" by Cavaliere Ugo Stella, an aristocrat from Milan in partnership with the French automobile firm of Alexandre Darracq. The partnership refurbished an idle Darracq factory in Portello, a Milan suburb, but at the onset of World War I the company converted to a munitions factory and the partnership was dissolved. It has been a part of Fiat SpA since 1970. Fiat plans to put Alfa Romeo together with another division, Maserati, to create a sports/luxury car division within the Fiat Group. The company was originally known as ALFA, which is an acronym meaning Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili.
When Nicola Romeo, a mathematics professor, bought ALFA in 1915, his surname was appended to the company name. Within a few years of Nicola Romeo taking control, the company began to participate in Grand Prix motor racing.
The company's first automobile was the 24 HP which appeared in 1910, and the following year entered the Targa Florio, the special competition in Sicily.
Until the 1980s, Alfa Romeos, except for the Alfasud, were rear-wheel-drive.
In 1995 Alfa Romeo ceased exporting cars to the US. While rumours occasionally surface of their intent to return to that market, no formal plans have ever been announced. The most credible is a rumour that, with Maserati's help, the Alfa Romeo 159 and Alfa Romeo Brera will be the make's pilot models should it reenter the North American market.
Cloverleaf are variants of Alfa Romeo cars, where the name denotes the high-end of the range in comfort and engine size, but previously denoted Alfa Romeo racing cars in the pre-second-world-war era. The image first appeared in 1923 when Ugo Sivocci presented one prior to the start of the 14th Targa Florio as a good luck token to the team. Some modern Alfas wear a cloverleaf badge which is typically a green four leaf clover on a white background, but variants of blue on white have been recently observed. |
