Alfa 155 Touring Car

[colcol]

In a recent Auto Fiction, in their racecar beauty pageant, they said the best looking Touring Car was the 1994 ALFA 155 BTCC, to quote, "The fact that such a tough looking race car could come from possibly Alfa's ugliest road car?, go figure....", sure it looks a bit dated, but what 18 year old car doesn't?, i remember in 94-95 going to work on a Saturday, coming home in the afternoon and watching the recorded VHS of the British Touring Car Championship, seeing Mr. Gabriella Tarquini turn the other makes BMW [r.w.d.], Renault, Vauxhall, Ford, Nissan, Honda and Toyota into CAT FOOD, to all you young people out there in your MITO's, new Guillietta's and 159's, Alfa Romeo used to race cars all those years ago, [unlike now], and they even raced one in Australia, entered by VALVOLINE Racing, Gary Rogers team, and it was driven by current Volkswagon Cup and V-8 endurance driver Steven Richards, also, best looking Rally Car, 1992 Lancia Delta HF Integrale, to quote, "The toughest looking Group A rally Car together with the cool Martini stripes, Still as striking today" so there, Colin.

[shiny_car]

The race cars are definitely a tough, nuggety looking vehicle! 





But otherwise ugly?! Yes, I'm biased, but they look tough on the street too, with a hunkered-down stance.

[colcol]

I have pictures of the 155 race cars on the wall at home,still a great looking car, when are Alfa /Fiat /Chrysler/Mazda going to get back into racing?, how can you have a sporty car maker who don't do any motorsport, even Skoda and Seat manage to race, the 155 is a good looking road car, sort of a sqaured off version of the 156, in the mid 90's, me and half the Alfa club went to Phillip Island, Calder, Winton and Adelaide and Albert Park to see the Valvoline 155 race, bought a tear to my eye, when i saw the marque we all love and drive on the racetrack, we were there at Phillip Island the day Greg Hansford lost his life, bad, bad  day, Colin.

[aggie57]

shiney_car - that first picture is of a DTM car, quite different to the Touring cars.  Really a silhouette formula and extremely impressive machines. 

Who bought Jim's 155?

[Neil Choi]

The 155 will be at PI in June.

[alfagtv58]

It was also at Sandown at the last sprint.

http://www.natsoft.com.au/cgi-bin/results.cgi?29/04/2012.SAN.S21.Y

[Paul Gulliver]

The 155 will be at PI in June.

Good to hear . The prognosis wasn't to go after Sandown last month.

[Evan Bottcher]

For some reason they've never appealed to me in standard form.  A little too tall and narrow in the back, and quite a bland interior.



Having said that, I didn't like the 75 for a long time now I think it looks great!

[Duk]

the 155 is a good looking road car, sort of a sqaured off version of the 156, in the mid 90's

Ummm, it can't be a version of a car that followed it.......... 
I think the 155 is a rather ugly car in standard form, but you can see its family origins.
That stupid bonnet that sits on top of the guards in the same way the Alfetta era of the Giulietta did (I loved my Giuli  ). The angular body, reminiscent of the 75 and the sloped backwards grill and tapered bonnet bulge that followed the Alfa shield, of the 164.

[aggie57]

The 155 was actually a derivative the Fiat Tipo.  My Dad had a Tipo in NZ at the time which was a reasonable little jigger if very prone to understeer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_Tipo

[colcol]

The 155 had styling cues that followed the 164, but a smaller version, and then followed its replacement the 156, which you could see it was part of the family, but Auto Fiction calling it Alfa's ugliest road car?, no way, if you style a car that offends no one, you end up with Camry's, the 155 2 litre Touring car that was raced by Steven Richards for Valvoline Racing was sold to British born David Auger, who continued to race it in the Australian 2 litre series, when the 2 litre series ended in Australia, i beleive David Auger raced it for a time in Asia, the 155 had a massive accident at if i remember rightly at the hayshed at Phillip Island, [helped by some wally in a Vauxhall?], and got replacement body parts and bits from a 155 from New Zealand, where the 155 was sold, Colin.

[shiny_car]

Not enough love for the 155?  

It is a much maligned car, because of that transition from the 'Alfa' (transaxle) platform to the 'Fiat' FWD platform. The 75 is great in many, many ways; and the 156 is also a great 'modern' car. What most of you will never appreciate (ie: you will never own one) about the 155 is that is was a very reasonable stepping stone between the 75 and 156.

The 75 is quirky, and despite its great RWD attributes, has many shortcomings. It's rolly-polly on the road (in standard form), fairly basic interior, and fairly basic (though tried and trued) engines. Though most cars do have 4x electric windows! Not bad for an '80s vehicle. Plus 'one' electric (passenger) mirror!

Shifting to FWD, the 155 could obviously package a more user-friendly cabin. The boot is relatively huge (esp cf V6 75 with fuel tank in boot), it has climate control, variable speed wipers, two (!) electric mirrors, four electric windows, height adjustable headlights, and the last incarnation of the 8V TS 2.0, with distributor-less ignition (before shifting to the Fiat 16V TS, the precursor of the 156 TS). ABS as standard, but no airbags until the series 2 'widebody' 155. The quality of the interior trims/plastics/fitment is not much better than a 75; and the 156 is noticably much, much better. The electrics (looms/design/layout, relays/grounds/switches) speak more of the 75 than they do the 156; again, the 156 is a truly modern car IMO. The headlights have projector lenses, which lend themselves nicely to HID/xenon conversion; these were also featured in the 145/146 Alfas of the same era, though only fitted to facelift 164's rather than early models. No projector lenses on the 75 or 156 (excl GTA).

The suspension is obviously completely different to the 75 (front double wishbone/rear transaxle), but also completely different to the 156 (front double wishbone/rear strut with double transverse lower arms); the 155 has front MacPherson strut (largely the same as the 916 GTV) and rear trailing arm. It's 'crashy' compared with both the 75 and 156, though the overall package is extremely well balanced, and more confidence-inspiring than the 156, and IMO offers more grip and chuckability.

The 8V TS 2.0 is apparently closely related to the engine in the 75 (not done a comparison myself); presumably the block and heads are very similar, in much the same way as a V6 75 and 164 are. Thus, it's a tough little engine, albeit a little rough compared with the 16V in the 156 (which of course has the balancer shaft).

I really like the exterior design. Granted, in stock form, the car appears tall and narrow. This can be accentuated if a rear spoiler is fitted. But most of you can only refer to 2D photos, whereas in reality, the car sits on a relatively wide track that tapers up to the narrow roof, most evident when viewing the car front-on. If you look at the angle of the 'line' (join) where the headlights meet the grill, the lines start wide and angle in on each side, emphasising this stance. Whilst that is similar to the 75's headlight/grill treatment, it is done to better effect on the 155 because of the slim profile of the headlights and grill. I really love the low-profile headlights/grill.

The 155 is a real joy to drive, and I happily use it as my 'daily'. It does feel 'cold'/stark to jump into, it is crashy and rattly and has significant road noise; but these are only relative to the cosseting 156, a generation later (I can make the same comparisons between the 156 and 159). But it feels fast, it grips hard, brakes hard; it is more sporty than both the 75 and 156 (excl GTA) in basic guise.

That is my story on the 155, and sorry to take it a little off-topic. No doubt it's 'beauty in the eye of the beholder'; whilst not a stunning-looking car, I'd say my 155 look tougher than most cars of its era on the road and rare as hen's teeth (unlike a dime-a-dozen E36 BMW), and packs more mod-cons than most. I've been able to draw comparison from owning a 159, have owned a TS 156 (and still have my GT), this 155, and a 75. Each generation brings significant improvements over the models before, though I concede there's less 'improvement' between the 75 and 155 than there is 'difference'.

[colcol]

And on the 155 Touring Car in Australia, there was a bit of tension between Alfa and the Vauxhall, the Vauxhall nerfed the Alfa off at Phillip Island, then did the same thing at Syney's Amaroo, and the driver David Auger calmy waited at the side of the track, next to stricken Alfa, took his helmet off, and at the right time threw it at Vauxhall, when it came past, 'bullseye' was the result, i was at a 2 litre Super Tourers race at Winton, looking under the bonnet of the Vauxhall, with all my Alfa gear on, and the Vauxhall driver came up to me, because he thought i was with the Alfa team, and in no uncertain terms told me to F#CK OFF, to which i said why would i want to steal your secrets, so i could Qualify and Finish up the back like you do?, and then walked off with a stupid grin on my face i couldn't switch off for hours, Colin.

[Sheldon McIntosh]

I always thought the 155 styling owed more to the 90 than the 75.  But I would say that.

Always thought they were a pretty good looking car though, particularly the wide-body.  I've seen shiny's at Spettacolo and it is a very handsome car.  Living in NZ I guess I kinda got used to the looks as well, as they were a reasonably common car.  Never could get used to the 146 though, that's a fugly car.

[Paul Gulliver]

Here's a couple of photo's of David Auger's 155