Article : Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale

The Alfa Romeo Tipo 33 Stradale is arguably one of the most beautiful cars ever made and one of the rarest too, since the Italian carmaker only built 18 road-going versions of the Tipo 33 racer. Of these, fewer than 10 are known to exist today, so you can imagine it’s quite a trophy in the world of classic car collectors.
An Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale in good condition would fetch well over $3,000,000 USD at auction (price estimate from 2011) however this is merely academic as they almost never change hands.

When it went on sale in early 1968 it was the most expensive car in the world, at a cost of $17,000 USD (the average cost of a new car at the time was under $2,800 USD).
The 33 Stradale is the first production vehicle to feature dihedral doors, also known as butterfly doors. The 33 Stradale also features windows which seamlessly curve upward into the ‘roof’ of the vehicle. The car has aluminium body on aluminium tubular chassis.

As a result of being built by hand, each model differs from the others for some details. For example, early models had twin headlights, replaced in the last ones by single lights. The position of the windscreen wiper, and even the number of them, is another thing that differentiates each example from the others

Also the late models have vents added behind both the front and rear wheels to allow hot air from the brakes to escape. The car has 13-inch Campagnolo magnesium wheels, the fronts eight and rears nine inches wide; there are Girling disc brakes on all four corners, the rear ones are inboard. Suspension is like in mid-1960s race car with upper and lower control arms in front and double trailing arms in the rear, along with substantial antiroll bars.

Powered by a 2.0-liter V8 engine producing around 230hp (234PS), the Tipo 33 Stradale was a very fast car for its era, thanks in part to a curb weight of only 700 kg (1,543 lbs). Mated to a six-speed manual gearbox, the high-revving engine (10,000 rpm red line) propelled it from 0 to 60 mph (96 km/h) in 5.5 seconds and on to a top speed of 260 km/h (162mph).

“Hidden in the trailer is one of the sexiest front profiles ever. Elegantly formed wings are filled with teardrop headlight cowls, the chrome applied like a Vogue cover girl’s eyeliner. The delicate Alfa shield sits proudly on an aggressive, narrow grille. Rarely are power and beauty melded so masterfully.” -Mick Walsh, Classic & Sportscar magazine, January 1999, in a rare feature on the Tipo 33 Stradale.

The race-bred engine bore no relation to the mass-produced units in Alfa’s more mainstream vehicles. The engine is closely related to the V8 of the Alfa Montreal, albeit with smaller capacity and in a much higher state of tune. Both engines were derived from the 33 racers‘ but differed in many details.
Both engines had chain driven camshafts as opposed to the racers‘ gear driven ones, but the Stradale kept the racing engine’s flat plane crankshaft, whereas the Montreal engine had a cross plane crank.

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Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfa_Romeo_33_Stradale , http://www.carscoops.com/2013/12/extremely-rare-1968-alfa-romeo-tipo-33.html , http://silodrome.com/alfa-romeo-33-stradale/ , http://www.kidston.com/kidston-cars/1120/