Alfa Romeo Giulia - GTA and Autodelta - a historic and successful combination in racing

The three letters GTA stand for the Italian term "Gran Turismo Alleggerita", roughly "lightened travel sports car". Alfa Romeo first used this abbreviation in 1965 for the Giulia GTA model, a special version of the Giulia Sprint GT. The production version presented at the Amsterdam Motor Show was conceived solely as the basis for a racing car, for which a minimum of 500 road cars sold was required for its admission to motorsport (homologation). Alfa Romeo's racing division Autodelta replaced almost all the steel sheets in the Giulia Sprint GT's body with those made of an aluminum alloy. In the end, the Giulia GTA weighed just 745 kilograms compared to 950 kilograms for the standard Giulia Sprint GT. The engineers also took care of the engine, which quickly became a legend in the variant with 1,570 cubic centimeters of displacement and two overhead camshafts. In the Alfa Romeo Giulia GTA, power was increased from 76 kW (103 hp) to 85 kW (115 hp), among other things, by dual ignition. The technicians at Autodelta tickled up to 120 kW (170 hp) out of the high-revving aluminum four-cylinder for racing use. Success on the race track was not long in coming. Among other things, Alfa Romeo achieved three brand titles in the European Touring Car Championship with various versions of the Alfa Romeo Giulia GTA. Dozens of national championships and hundreds of individual races around the world added to the model's trophy collection.