A Sight for Sore Eyes - 1973 Alfa Romeo GT 1600 Junior

At Cars of Malaysia, we try our best to give great content
for car enthusiasts in Malaysia. We provide car reviews (with technical
explanations), we provide our perspectives on car events, and we feature cars we
find worthy of our attention. Some are fast cars that get used and abused, some
are quirky cars that don’t do things the conventional way, and some cars are
just old and gold – like this Alfa Romeo GT 1600 Junior.
New Alfa Romeos are hard to come by in Malaysia. They were
once officially distributed by Sime Darby but that all ended in 2013. (link to news article on paultan.org).
With no official dealership for the Alfa Romeo brand, there are a lot of
challenges for a person trying to buy one. The absence of an official
dealership means you don’t get the after sales experience, which is very
important considering the reliability of an Alfa Romeo. Alfa Romeos are often
seen as a romantic and insensible choice for a car. Some people like the look
of it, some people like the sound of it, and some may just have an affinity
towards anything Italian when it comes to cars.
Before we go on, we must first thank our friends from Chemlube Malaysia for getting us sorted out with this beautiful Alfa Romeo.
To learn more about Chemlube, you can head on over to their website, their blog, their facebook page, or their Instagram account (@chemlubemalaysia).
Appreciating the GT 1600 Junior
I couldn’t imagine myself owning and caring for a classic
car. Perhaps I haven’t been bitten by the bug yet. But there are people out
there who would rather spend their money on an old car without power steering
than a brand-new sports car that could do 0-60mph in 3.6 seconds. This Alfa
Romeo GT 1600 Junior is an example of such choice.
Classic cars need to be driven carefully, have nasty rust issues, and are not practical. What’s the upside? Well, in the case of this Alfa Romeo, it’s a pleasure to look at. Not many cars can rock steel wheels and still look charming. The design is simple and has no complicated surfaces. The hood hinges at the front end like many older sports cars. There is no left or right front quarter panel. It’s just one big piece from the left, across the front, and to the right. Those bumpers are a joke by modern safety standards, but they give a beautiful minimalist look to the car. The curved edges of the car combined with the red paint do make it look like a biji saga on wheels.
Inside, the GT 1600 Junior is small. There’s not much headroom which reminded me of the NC Miata I tried some time ago (link to article). Of course, the Miata is a much more fun car to drive and the interior is more claustrophobic. There is no power steering in the Alfa and it isn’t the most ergonomic car out there. The dash configuration is unique by modern standards. There’s not much going on at the gauge cluster. You get the odometer, tachometer, and an oil pressure gauge (I guess). That’s about it. Everything else is spread across the length of the dashboard like the water temperature gauge, the fuel gauge, and some warning lights.
Things like the parking light and windscreen wipers are operated by flick switches, you get an ashtray on the driver’s side door, and the foot pedals look very Italian. The car takes some getting used to and you need to be physical yet gentle when driving it. If you’re a hot headed young man with very little patience, this isn’t the car for you.
The gear lever is way up near the dash and it is part of a 5-speed standard manual transmission, the headrests are at a fixed position, and the roof lining looks like it belongs on the inside of a suitcase. The assist grips are spring loaded, but not in a modern car kind of manner. Being inside the car is a unique experience itself, and perhaps it’s the reason why some of us like old Alfa Romeos.
Popping the Hood
There’s no engine code for the Junior’s engine. It’s just
called the Twin Cam by Alfa Romeo - Aluminium alloy engine block, Twin carburettors, double overhead cams,
in-line 4 cylinders, 2 valves per cylinder, and when fresh from the factory it
had a rated maximum power output of 107.5 bhp. Alfa’s twin cam 4 cylinder does not have an iconic sound. It’s
just a low rumble of an engine with a carburettor. However, popping the hood up
is a pleasing sight. You are first greeted by the unique front-hinged bonnet
and then you see the ‘Alfa Romeo’ wordings proudly cast onto the cam cover.
It’s something different from the modern-day plastic engine covers. Although
the Alfa with the hood up is a sight for sore eyes, we hope it is not something
you’ll be forced to see during a breakdown.
To think that this was considered a sports car back in its day, we’ve really come a long way since then. Twin cams are now standard, we get 4 valves per cylinder now, we have electronic fuel injection (even better – direct injection), and even small modern economical cars can smoke grandpa Alfa effortlessly (Ford Fiesta Ecoboost).
Is the GT 1600 Junior
powerful?
Not by today’s standards. You have to
give it a bit more gas even when rolling off from a flat surface. It’s just
carburettors in general – they are crude an inefficient.
Basic Science of an Old Car (Carburettor)
I am young, and I’m sure some of you reading this are young
as well. Carburettors are a thing of the past, although you may still find them
in go karts and lawnmowers. The only car I’ve ever driven with a carburettor
prior to this was a Proton Saga Aeroback. And Carburettors can be an
interesting topic to talk about. The twin carburettors of the GT 1600 Junior
are partially hidden behind the air filter in the image above.
What does a
carburettor do?
A carburettor mixes the air and fuel
that goes into the combustion chamber
How does a
carburettor work?
Like a spray gun. It’s a combination
of Bernoulli’s principle and the working s of a venturi tube. Fast moving air
sucks the gasoline from a reservoir and creates an air-fuel mixture rich enough
to power the car.
left: spray gun; right: diagram of a venturi tube
What has happened to
carburettors?
They have been replaced by fuel
injection systems. There were mechanical fuel injection systems like the one we
see in the M103 engine of the Merecedes Benz W126 300SEL (link to article).
They can be a pain in the ass to fix. Today, we are blessed with electronic
fuel injection systems which are more precise, efficient, and easier to
modulate.
What is a carburettor
choke?
A choke is just a butterfly valve. A
choke is something you need during cold starts for a car. You choke the airflow
in the engine to create a vacuum as the piston goes to BDC (Bottom Dead
Centre). This vacuum pulls a rich mixture of fuel into the engine to help start
it up.
A GTV Back End
If you noticed something a little off with this GT 1600 Junior, yes, the taillights are from a 2000 GTV.
Final Words
The aesthetics of a car will always be a subjective matter.
I like the way this Alfa looks – nice clean edges, simple overall design, and
very Italian. It’s just not something you can hoon around in. Modern Alfas
maybe, but not this granddad of a car. You have to be gentle, and very patient
at that too.
There is one ‘old’ Alfa that comes to mind when it comes to honing - the Alfaholics GTA-R. The one that Chris Harris drove some time in 2017. The downside? It costs 1 quarter million dollars (USD, I presume).
See you in the next post.
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