The new Alfa Romeo Giulia GTA Highlights

On June 24th, 2020, Alfa Romeo will reach an important milestone in its remarkable history: 110 years in business.

During that century-plus span, Alfa Romeo engineers and designers have relentlessly pursued innovation, while always remaining true to the Brand's DNA.

Over the years, this DNA - the perfect combination of sportiness and elegance - has created not only some of the most iconic vehicles ever built, but also vehicles that are right at home both on the racetrack and in any beauty contest.

To mark its 110th birthday, Alfa Romeo presents a vehicle that fully signifies a return to the brand's origins, while paying tribute to one of the most emblematic vehicles of Alfa Romeo: Giulia GTA.

The acronym GTA stands for "Gran Turismo Alleggerita" (alleggerita being the Italian term for "lightened"), and it originated in 1965 with the Giulia Sprint GTA, a specific version derived from the Sprint GT, designed as a sports car and presented at the Amsterdam Motor Show staged that same year.

The body of the Giulia Sprint GT was replaced with an identical version in aluminum, for a total weight of 1,642 lb compared to the 2,094 lb of the road version.

A second variation concerned the 1.6 twin cam engine which, in the road configuration, with dual ignition, reached an impressive output of 115 hp.

The technicians of Autodelta, the official Alfa Romeo racing team, chose it as the reference vehicle for the Touring category, and developed it to achieve a maximum output of 170 hp.

The model's success in competitions was then immediate: three consecutive "Challenge Europeo Marche", tens of national championships and hundreds of individual races in every part of the world.

And the way it ramped up the image of the entire range was also impressive: Giulia Sprint GTA expressed the claim "A victory a day in your everyday car" to perfection.

From then on, the GTA made a name for itself as the undisputed icon of Alfa Romeo sportiness and the acronym GTA became so successful that the public soon associated it with all the sporty Alfa Romeo vehicles in general.