50 Years of Alfa Romeo Montreal

Actually, the vehicle whose 50th anniversary we want to celebrate here today would never have existed by plans of the brand alone. The trigger for its creation was a call from the organisers of the 1967 Expo world fair to the management of Alfa Romeo. With a view to the future direction of this exhibition, the basic theme ‘Man and His world’ was to be illuminated in all its facets. One section was dedicated to the motto ‘Man the Producer’ as an exhibition area for industrially manufactured goods. Without doubt, this also includes the automobile. We don’t know exactly why it was the idea in Canada to call Alfa Romeo on behalf of this theme to ask for a sensational concept car. The choice of the name ‘Montreal’ for this car on the other hand seems logial: the Expo 1967 took place in this Canadian metropolis. However, the concept car was still nameless on the way to the fair. During the Expo, the name developed as a call sign and was finally officially adopted for it.

Alfa Romeo joined forces with the design house Bertone, where at the time the young and talented car designer Marcello Gandini was rising to the top of his profession. He designed an exceptional coupé with intertwined B and C pillars, louvre grilles in front of the headlights and side air intakes behind the doors, which suggests that he envisioned a mid-engine as the drive concept. This could have been viewed by passers-by through the large glass tailgate. With a length of only 4.22 meters, the Montreal study was very compact. Two roadworthy examples are being built for the World Expo, but for time and financial reasons they are based on the Giulia with a four-cylinder front-mounted engine. In Montreal, both cars were exhibited between mirrors in such a way that they have been optically multiplied infinitely. Up to 500,000 Expo visitors per day looked at this sports car, among others. Soon Alfa Romeo received many inquiries from North America and the rest of the world, who wanted a series version of the white painted prototypes.

As this was an unexpected source of sales, the management soon gave the development engineers the go-ahead for the ‘Montreal’ project. Compared to the concept car, only relatively few details were changed. Gandini’s coupé design had to be adapted in small areas to comply with current registration regulations. For example, the grilles in front of the headlights were retained, but fold down automatically when the lights are switched on. The slots on the sides of the vehicle, which were actually intended to supply air to a mid-engine, were only used to ventilate the interior of the production vehicle. Behind the three-spoke wooden steering wheel there are two large round instruments and a large number of other displays. The driver and front passenger are seated in comfortable sports seats, behind which there are two emergency seats.

The chassis continues to be based on that of the Giulia GT. However, some additional stiffening measures allowed the installation of the V8 engine from the Tipo 33 racing car. While the dry sump lubrication and the aluminium engine block were retained, some adaptation work on the engine components ensured greater suitability for everyday use. The displacement was increased from two to 2.6 liters, a mechanical petrol injection system from Società Pompe Iniezione Cassani & Affini (SPICA) was installed, thereby increasing the series output to a solid 147 kW/200 hp and 243 newtonmeters of torque. A manual five-speed gearbox transmits these to the rear axle with integrated limited slip differential. After only 7.6 seconds, the coupé reaches 100 kph (62 mph) and a topspeed of up to 219 kph (136 mph).

For the production version of the Montreal Alfa Romeo teamed up with Bertone. There the production and painting of the bodywork took place. Afterwards the Alfa plant in Arese took care of the completion with technical components and interior. Due to the oil crisis in 1973 and 1974, sales figures fell well short of expectations. By 1977, only 3,925 units had been produced. While in Germany the new car price was 35,000 DM, good vehicles today cost between US$ 65,000 and US$ 100,000.

Images: Alfa Romeo