Alfa Romeo Giulia Sprint GTA
The Giulia Sprint GTA is historic touring racing's aristocrat: Autodelta's aluminium-bodied lightweight won three straight European Touring Car Challenges (1966–68) and remains the most coveted small-capacity tin-top of its era.
History
The 'A' stands for Alleggerita — lightened — and Autodelta meant it: the 1965 GTA replaced the Giulia Sprint GT's steel outer panels with Peraluman aluminium, added the twin-plug 1.6 twin-cam, magnesium wheels and close-ratio gearing, cutting some 200 kg. In Autodelta Corsa trim with around 170 hp, the little Bertone coupé simply outran everything in its class and most things above it.
The record was immediate and total: European Touring Car Challenge titles in 1966, 1967 and 1968, national championships across Europe and the Americas, and the 1300 GTA Junior extending the domination into the smaller class into the early 1970s, while the GTAm's fuel-injected 2-litre evolution carried the shape's success into Group 2's next era.
Collector reality follows the racing: roughly 500 GTA 1600s were built and genuine Autodelta Corsa cars sit at the summit of Alfa collecting, with period race history the great multiplier. The model headlines every historic touring grid — Goodwood's St Mary's Trophy, Peter Auto's HTC, US vintage racing — where well-driven GTAs still humble larger machinery, sixty years on.
Palmarès
European Touring Car Challenge champion 1966, 1967 and 1968; the GTA Junior's class titles into the early 1970s and the GTAm's 1970–71 European crowns extending the family's run; national touring championships from Italy to the SCCA's Trans-Am 2.5 class — followed by six decades of front-running historic results.
What to check before you buy
Authenticity is forensic territory: genuine GTAs have documented chassis sequences, Peraluman panels with correct construction details, and twin-plug engines whose provenance the marque historians can trace — steel-bodied GT 'GTA tributes' outnumber real cars several times over and the price gap is an order of magnitude. Establish Autodelta versus Stradale specification, period race history via entry lists, and panel originality percentage after sixty years of racing repairs. Engines: correct twin-plug units matter absolutely at collector level, less for pure historic-racing tools with HTP papers. Buy through the recognized Alfa specialists — this market's expertise is concentrated and known.
Did you know
- Peraluman body panels were riveted and bonded over the steel inner structure — period scrutineers checked GTAs with magnets, and so do today's buyers.
- Autodelta's twin-plug head fired each cylinder with two distributors' worth of hardware — 1960s solutions to combustion problems modern ECUs solve in software.
- At Goodwood's St Mary's Trophy, GTAs regularly set faster race laps than V8 muscle twice their capacity — the spectacle that keeps invitation lists Alfa-heavy.
