Word: alfa
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...this noise about noise seems unnecessarily shrill, considering how much mankind loves the stuff. Italians put Alfa-Romeo horns on Fiats, and sometimes honk until the battery goes dead. Long before the chuffy steam engine, the average town was anything but a hushed haven of peace and quiet; one need only sample the nonstop bell ringing, banging and conversational yelling that still goes on from dawn to dark in any little Spanish fishing village. Men make noise as a way of showing their vitality, and they welcome the noises others make as tokens against loneliness...
...Alfa-Romeo that failed to do the job: the car in which Benito Mussolini and his mistress tried, unsuccessfully, to escape Italian partisans...
...other models, many of which can be described by one poetic company slogan: "The Wind Designed Them." Under the wind-blown look are engines that can leave most other cars far behind.* The expensive 2600 SZ model (price $6,695) speeds up to 131 m.p.h. Most other Alfa-Romeos easily top 100 m.p.h.; the somewhat sedate Ghilias are modestly rated at "over 96 m.p.h...
...Alfa-Romeo's performance delights the Italian government, which owns 90% of the company's 45 million shares through Istituto per la Ricostruzione Industriale, the government holding company which also controls the jets of Alitalia, the luxury ships of the Italian Line and the nation's telephone and radio-TV networks. After suffering from indifferent sales early in the 1960s Alfa-Romeo has been revived largely by President Giuseppe Luraghi, 60. A onetime IRI executive, Luraghi was put in the driver's seat to balance speed and wind designing with cost accounting, marketing and long-range...
Bigger Overseas. Luraghi also argues that the future of European automaking depends on exports. Alfa-Romeo last year exported 23% of its cars but sent only 1,500 to the U.S. To increase those totals, the company has invested $90 million to build a modern factory at Arese, just outside Milan. Luraghi expects to double output in seven years by turning out cars that appeal to the everyday driver whose Fangio instincts are stirred by a six-speed manual gearshift and easy acceleration to 100 m.p.h...