The Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale, or "Tipo" 33 Stradale is revered by many as the sexiest car in the world. But a short search online doesn't necessarily highlight the in-depth analysis and story of the car in comparison to other cars which do possess a massive array of YouTube videos, articles, you name it. Hence, I decided to write this article to showcase some important and relatively unknown details about the car which I amassed after what feels like ages of online research. Also, I attached a video of some in-car footage from Assetto Corsa (which is said to be the most accurate version of this car virtually).

BACKSTORY OF THE 33

The Alfa Romeo Sportscar Prototype Programme:

On March 6, 1963, Alfa Romeo's racing department, Autodelta (Still around as an Alfa tuning shop), was established, to run Alfa Romeo's sportscar programme, directed by ex-Alfa Romeo and Ferrari engineer, Carlo Chiti.

The Alfa 33TT12 The Alfa 33TT12

Competing with the Alfa Romeo TZ, the team began to collect class wins, but faced strong competition from the Porsche 904 and realised they would need a new design if they were to achieve outright victories. Carlo Chiti and the Audodelta team, designed a new 90 degree V8 engine for their Alfa Romeo Tipo 33 sportscar and ultimately a flat-12 engine for the Alfa Romeo 33 TT 12. These cars were raced in the World Sportscar Championship from 1967 to 1977, with the 3-litre TT 12, winning title in 1975 and SC 12 in 1977. The company developed a Group C prototype in the early 1990s, codenamed the SE 048SP, but this never raced.

The SE048SP-Such a shame that it never raced... The SE048SP-Such a shame that it never raced...

The Tipo 33:

Picture Credit: Petrolicious Picture Credit: Petrolicious

Alfa set out to develop the Tipo 33, a sports car prototype raced by the Alfa Romeo factory-backed team between 1967 and 1977. These cars took part for Sport Cars World Championship, Nordic Challenge Cup, Interserie and CanAm series. They raced in many hallowed races like Le Mans, Targa Florio, and many more.

The Tipo had multiple iterations such as:

𝟭. 𝗔𝗹𝗳𝗮 𝗥𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗼 𝗧𝗶𝗽𝗼 𝟯𝟯 : The first iteration, built in 1965 which featured an Auto-Delta 2.0L V8. It had a characteristic air scoop (hence the "Periscope" nickname). Power was rated at 230hp.

𝟮. 𝗔𝗹𝗳𝗮 𝗥𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗼 𝟯𝟯/𝟮: Autodelta, created an evolution model called 33/2. This version led to the development of the road going 33 Stradale. It rivaled the Porsches of it's time (907) which ran bigger engines. They were competitive and did win the 2.0L Class at Daytona. It won races at the Nurburgring and Targa Florio in it's class and later on via privateer teams. Power was rated at 270hp for the 2.0L V8 and 315hp for the 2.5L V8.

𝟯. 𝗔𝗹𝗳𝗮 𝗥𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗼 𝟯𝟯/𝟯 : The Alfa Romeo 33/3 made its debut in 1969 at the 12 Hours of Sebring. The engine was enlarged to 2998 cc with 400 hp, which put the 33/3 in the same class as the Porsche 908 and the Ferrari 312P, which were much superior. The chassis was now a monocoque. The new car did poorly at Sebring and Alfa did not take part in Le Mans after Lucien Bianchi's death in a practice session. The car took a couple of wins in smaller competitions but overall the 1969 season was not a successful one. After the introduction of the Porsche 917, they were pretty much hopeless, yet managed to finally overcome the "Invincible" 917 in 1971.

𝟰. 𝗔𝗹𝗳𝗮 𝗥𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗼 𝗧𝟯𝟯/𝟰: A 4 litre version was entered to 1972 and 1974 CanAm series, which had mixed results. CanAm was a race of the most power and Porsche had a clear edge on it.

𝟱. 𝗔𝗹𝗳𝗮 𝗥𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗼 𝟯𝟯𝗧𝗧𝟭𝟮 : The 33 TT 12 (Telaio Tubolare aka, tubular chassis) appeared in 1973 with the Carlo Chiti-designed 12 cylinder 3.0L flat engine (500 bhp). It was dominant and was the most hallowed of the Tipo 33 lineup. It was mostly in development during 1973 and did secure a second place finish. But it won outright in the 1975 season.

𝟲. 𝗔𝗹𝗳𝗮 𝗥𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗼 𝟯𝟯𝗦𝗖𝟭𝟮: The successor of the 33TT12 1976 was the 33SC12, SC referring to Scatolato, a boxed chassis. The 3.0 L flat-12 engine now produced 520 bhp. With this car Alfa Romeo won the 1977 World Championship for Sports Cars, the 33SC12s won every race in the series. At the Salzburgring the car reached an average speed of 203.82 km/h (126.6 mph); in that same race Arturo Merzario also tested a 2134 cc turbocharged SC12 producing 640 bhp finishing second with that car. The SC12 Turbo was Alfa's first twin turbocharged 12 cylinder engine and it was introduced around the same time as Renault's Formula One turbo engine. In the Alfa Romeo engine each bank was fed with its own turbocharger; that feature was adopted by many racecar makers in the following years. The flat-12 engine was later used on Brabham-Alfa BT45, BT46 and Alfa Romeo 177 F1 cars.

THE 33 "STRADALE"

Fun fact: The 33 Stradale was the FIRST production car to feature butterfly doors

The 33 Stradale was essentially the road going version of the Tipo 33. It was called "Stradale" as it is the Italian word for road-going. It was introduced at the Sport Car Show at Monza in September 1967. Only 18 cars were ever built of which five were used as concept cars with bodies being built by Italian coachbuilders such as Bertone, Pininfarina and Italdesign. (pictures hyperlinked).

It featured a handbuilt aluminium body on an aluminium tubular chassis. It accelerated to 100 km/h (62 mph) from a standing start in under 6 seconds and had a claimed top speed of 260 km/h (160 mph). Not mind boggling numbers for today's standards, but you've got to remember, this was the 60s!

The Heart of the Matter:

The 33 Stradale was powered by a GLORIOUS race-derived engine which bore no similarities to any Alfa production engine thus far. The engine is closely related to the V8 of the Alfa Montreal, albeit with smaller capacity and in a much higher state of tune. Both engines had chain driven camshafts as opposed to the gear driven cams in the 33 racecars, but the Stradale kept the racing engine’s flat plane crankshaft, which attributes to that euphonious high pitched howl. It featured an oversquare bore x stroke of 78 mm × 52.2 mm, dry-sump lubricated all aluminum 1,995 cc V8 engine that featured twin spark plugs per cylinder. It revved to 10,000 rpm with a compression ratio of 10.5:1, producing 230 PS at 8,800 rpm and 206 Nm at 7,000 rpm of torque in road trim and 270 bhp in race trim.

So, how does it drive then?

Here's the dilemma I ran across while researching about this gem of a car. Most cars have many YouTube videos, articles and what not describing every minute detail of the driving experience that these cars offer ("qUiRKs aND FeAtURes" anyone?). However due to the sheer rarity and it's eye melting pricetag, most are garage queens which barely see the light of day hence very few or even non-existent accounts of how it feels like to drive. Us mere mortals might never have the chance to even catch a glimpse of one, forget driving it. So here's what I gathered from a couple accounts I have read and by slipping into the virtual simulation that is Assetto Corsa:

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If I were to describe it in a sentence: A Lotus Elise or Toyota MR2 on an LSD trip.

I'll admit straight up that I have never driven a car with more than 250hp nor have I ever driven a car of this calibre in real life, but from hours behind the wheel I can form a somewhat fair opinion on how a car would feel based on relating the in game physics to real life (will write an article about this soon, so watch this space).

The 33 Stradale has exceptional grip and stopping power compared to any other car from this era such as the Miura or any period Ferrari. This can be attributed to Colin Chapman's theory of "adding lightness" as the 33 is much lighter than the cars I'm taking as reference here. The car is neutral handling with a tendency to understeer quite a lot, typical mid engine trait as the front end is lighter, and it does snap oversteer if you're careless with it but nothing severe as a hefty kick of the accelerator will solve that fairly easily. It has enough power to feel quick, at the same time not so much that it overpowers the chassis in general. When you're driving on the limit, you can pretty much steer with your feet, i.e. it dances nimbly on pedal input while cornering, brakes to rotate, accelerator to power out of it. It feels surefooted, well balanced and controllable on the limit. It's great fun to drive and I do recommend you to give it a go if you have a decent wheel and Assetto Corsa.

In Conclusion

I stumbled upon this car in Assetto Corsa and I was wonderstruck by it's beauty and drove it without any initial research and it left such an impression that I felt I had to write about and share with you guys. The purpose of this article is to serve as a brief archive of information pertaining to the Alfa 33 Stradale.

𝗛𝗼𝗽𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗲𝗻𝗷𝗼𝘆𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱 :)