ALFA ROMEO Giulia Coupe 1300 GTA Junior 1965-1972 Photos, engines & full specs

After the Giulietta era, when Alfa Romeo sold almost 180.000 units, the Italian carmaker made a successor for it, the Giulia.

Giulia was designed as a sporty sedan, but Autodelta, Alfa Romeo's motorsport department, understood that it might be an excellent race car and pushed the company to make it as a coupe. Bertone started to work and shortened Giulia's platform and designed a new bodywork for it, which barely resembled the sedan version.

The only parts that could resemble the sedan version were the headlights. Yet, in those times, most cars featured round headlamps. With its sloped shape and three-box sedan appearance, the Giulia Coupe was a good starting point for Autodelta to create a racing vehicle. It changed the body panels to aluminum, made the inner steel metallic parts thinner, and installed oversized dials for the speedometer and tachometer.

With its 2+2 construction and tall greenhouse, the Giulia Coupe could accommodate four occupants inside, separated by the transmission tunnel. Autodelta installed slim windows, and it replaced even the door handles with lighter alternatives. Thus, the Giulia GTA was born. While the GT stood for Grand Turismo, the A stood for "Alleggerita" (Lightened).

Under the hood, Alfa Romeo installed on a 1.3-liter engine developed by Autodelta from the larger 1.6-liter unit instead of working on the already existing 1.3-liter unit from the regular Giulia. The Italian engineers shortened the pistons' stroke and thus resulted in a rev-happy engine. They paired it to a 5-speed manual gearbox. As a result, the Giulia GTA 1300 Junior was a highly successful race car in its class.