Forza Alfa Romeo: Spotlight on Museo Storico 

You don't typically see people doffing their hats when Italian cars cruise past - these days it's usually a smartphone recording a red blur - but taking a tour of the Alfa Romeo Museum in Arese near Milan, I think I understand old Henry's sentiment.

Spending the best part of an hour examining the incredible 1952 Disco Volante from every conceivable angle, then marvelling at the motorsport ingenuity of the Gran Premio Tipo A - a GP race car with not one but two supercharged engines driving the rear wheels - is an almost hypnotic experience.

How about inspecting the bus-like LaFerrari of the 1910s, a teardrop-shaped supercar built for the aristocracy of the time?

Then seeing a dipstick upon which Fangio engraved his name?

Unbelievable.

The museum itself is comprised of several large buildings joined by an architectural 'red band', a architectural modern walkway of sorts that winds its way through exhibits based in the old buildings from the mid-1970s.

There's a small test track outside - upon which we were lucky enough to drive a classic Giulia Super - and even a '4D' cinema that employs 3D glasses, moving seats, fans and water jets to simulate a Targa Florio-inspired open-road race.

But where did it all begin for the Italian car company for which motor racing is an intrinsic part of its DNA?

As Lorenzo Ardizio, curator of Museo Storico Alfa Romeo, tells it, Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili - or ALFA for short - came into being in June 1910. The company had 200 workers on the books, when Ugo Stella registered the company in Italy.

The Romeo part was another decade away but the first fruit to fall from the ALFA automotive tree was the A.L.F.A 24 HP which, today, is the kind of car that kids point at elatedly and scream "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang!"

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One of the few A.L.F.A 24 HP vehicles left today takes pride of place at the opening of the museum and yes, it's in working order insists Ardizio.

ALFA didn't dilly-dally when it came to competing in motorsport, the Italian brand's racing spirit flourishing less than a year after its inception in 1911, when a pair of 24 HPs competed in the Targa Florio.

Italian customers loved the cars but were demanding more power so a 40-60hp version was created shortly after.

But company co-founder and designer Giuseppe Merosi saw a shrewd way to promote the brand on a much larger scale - Grand Prix racing!

He took the idea of a 4.5-litre four-cylinder engine to the ALFA board in October 1913. The board agreed and work began on the race car… but it was a disaster. It went from bad to worse when in 1914 Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo.

World War I broke out and the car industry shuddered to a halt as manufacturing plants were forced to build military machines.

ALFA produced combat hardware for the war effort, which is when the 'Romeo' part of the car-maker's name came into play. The company became Alfa Romeo in 1918, not long after Nicola Romeo joined it.

Business boomed during the Great War.

By 1919, with hostilities over, the Italian car-maker was looking for new ideas and new markets.

There were some hits and misses but by 1922 the Alfa Romeo RL was car designer Merosi's undisputed masterpiece. It was the company's first sports car to arrive after the war and it won the 1923 Targo Florio race.

The RL Targa Florio, as it was known, was the first car to bear the cloverleaf (quadrifoglio) emblem, and today less than 10 of these cars exist.

Ugo Sivocci won the Targa Florio that year, at a time when motorsport was an almost magical reprieve for the people after the terrors of the war.

Famous drivers such as Antonio Ascari and Enzo Ferrari raced for Alfa Romeo at the time as well, and in 1925 Alfa Romeo won the first ever automobile world championship - which later became the Grand Prix world championship.

The car that won that race, the Grand Prix Tipo P2, was powered by a 2.0-litre supercharged inline eight-cylinder engine that cranked out 155hp (115kW) at 5500rpm.

Today it is a legendary car and it beggars belief getting up close and personal with the car in the museum, and understanding that drivers blasted around at up to 225km/h with average brakes, woolly steering and bicycle-thin tyres…

They had big cojones, back then!

Alfa Romeo went on to win four Le Mans 24 Hour races in succession, from 1931 to 1934, thanks to the torpedo-shaped 8C 2300 Monza race car.

It had a 165hp (123kW) supercharged twin-carb inline eight-cylinder engine displacing 2.3 litres. It weighed 920kg and had a top speed of 210km/h and today it's priceless.

Alfa Romeo also won 10 Targa Florio and 11 Mille Miglia races - the latter more than any other car marque.

Indeed, Alfa Romeo was the Ferrari of the early 20th century, building up a motorsport and road car pedigree par excellence.

The Mille Miglia was run between 1927 and 1957, a 1000-mile (1600km) open-road endurance race that helped cement the reputations of car brands such as Alfa Romeo, Porsche, Ferrari and BMW as sports car innovators.

Alfa Romeo also had great success in Grand Prix racing with five world championships, the first in 1925 as mentioned earlier, then the first official 'F1' GP in 1950, with Guiseppe Farina the key driver.

Argentinean ace Juan Manuel Fangio won the GP championship in 1951 for Alfa Romeo - narrowly missing out in 1950 - and the Italian brand won again in 1975 and 1977.

Alfa Romeo was transformed into an aircraft manufacturer during WWII - in line with most car-makers across the globe - but unlike some it struggled in post-war times.

The large, hand-built, low-volume masterpieces that Alfa Romeo was famous for gave way to mass-produced small cars that were not always successful.

The long and storied account of Alfa Romeo, including its recent renaissance, is told in explicit detail at the Museo Storico Alfa Romeo in Arese.

All the vehicles on display are drivable and some of the more striking ones include the various concept cars from the late 1960s, including the Carabo in which the 170kW naturally-aspirated 2.0-litre V8 and chassis is borrowed from the legendary 33 Stradale of 1967 - itself an epic car to behold.

I must confess that my knowledge of Alfa Romeo history was lighter than the carbon-fibre chassis underpinning an Alfa Romeo 4C but after spending a day at the Museo Storico Alfa Romeo I feel like I could write an essay on it…

With names like Fangio, Farina and Nuvolari establishing a motorsport dynasty and cars like the Giulietta Spider from the mid-1950s and Giulia Sprint GTA from the mid-60s cementing its place as an engineering and design pioneer, Alfa's recent rejuvenation with new factories, new models and new personnel bode well for the next epoch.

I reckon if Henry Ford was still around today, he'd still doff his hat whenever an Alfa Romeo rolls by.

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Related Forza Alfa Romeo reading:
Forza Alfa Romeo: Design leads the charge
Forza Alfa Romeo: Stelvio Adventure Drive
Forza Alfa Romeo: Spotlight on Museo Storico
Forza Alfa Romeo: Alfa Romeo’s factory of the future
Forza Alfa Romeo: Guilia QV and 4C Review
Forza Alfa Romeo: Tour of top-secret Skunkworks
Forza Alfa Romeo: Top seven cars at the Arese museum
Alfa Romeo Giulia 1963 Retro Review
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