1980 Alfa Romeo 179

Some of the very finest and most influential single-seat sports cars ever produced wore the mystically imposing cross and serpent of the Alfa Romeo crest. Racers like the Alfetta and 33TT12 destroyed their competitors and earned their parent company a long-lived reputation as one of the best racing car producers in the world.

But, paralleling the often tumultuous story of Alfa Romeo's production cars, not every Alfa racer was a success. The Alfa Romeo 179, an F1 car plagued by unreliability and bad luck, proved that, though an excellent marque, Alfa was far from invincible.

Produced in various forms from 1979 through 1981, the 179 was under constant development from the start. The car began life as a revised Alfa 177, using a new 60-degree V12 engine as opposed to the 177's flat-12. The engine's switch from horizontally-opposed to V-configuration enabled a revised aerodynamics package with underbody venturi.

While testing a 179 model in 1980 at Hockenheim, driver Patrick Depailler lost his life while negotiating the treacherous Ostkurve, cementing the 179's fate as a troubled car. Even Mario Andretti, who joined Alfa for 1981, could not satisfactorily tame the machine.

Even with its obvious flaws, though, the 179 exhibited potential. In the 1980 racing season's final event, an Alfa 179 qualified first with Bruno Giacomelli at the wheel. But, suffering the familiar fate of other 179s, Giacomelli's car failed to finish that race. Capable in the right hands but cripplingly unreliable, the 179 struggled throughout its racing career. The series was replaced for the 1982 season by the Alfa 182, which eventually replaced the naturally-aspirated V12 with a turbocharged V8.

The Alfa Romeo 179s were factory-backed cars, raced by Autodelta. Alfa established Autodelta in the mid-1960s when, after years of official absence, the carmaker was ready to once again sponsor the racing tradition that had been all but infallible in the prewar years.

Autodelta started out with great success, racing Alfa sports and GT cars such as the iconic and all-conquering GTAm, with its menacingly blistered fenders and propensity for photogenic three-wheeled poses. In 1976, Autodelta made its first entry into F1 racing as an engine supplier to Brabham. By 1979, Autodelta was ready to enter the Alfa 177 in Grand Prix racing.

Alfa Romeo's ancient racing heritage, along with the proven success of Autodelta as a racing team, should have guaranteed a successful entry into F1 racing. As the 179 proved race after race, though, even seasoned and storied experts could have trouble trying to break into the intensely competitive ranks of Grand Prix racing.

Sources:

'Alfa Romeo 177/179/182/183.' Alfa-Models.com n. pag. Web. 8 Jun 2011. http://www.alfa-models.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=144&Itemid=107&lang=en.

By Evan Acuña