In 1964, twelve years after the withdrawal from Formula 1 and after Ferrari and Porsche had decided to produce racing cars for the category Sport Prototypes up to two litres of capacity, the Alfa Romeo management planned to return to international sport competitions with the “33” models.
The financial situation of Alfa Romeo had been sensibly improved and, thus, after the parenthesis of the numerous victories with the production cars, time had come to run with cars built on purpose for the international competitions. Furthermore, it always had been a policy of the Milanese house, to exploit as much as possible its sports programmes in order to profit from a technical viewpoint and, at the same time, to promote from a commercial viewpoint its industrial plans.
The 33/2 name comes out of the internal code from the Design Offices of the Portello, where the project of this new car was denoted by type AR 105.33 code: the 2 after the slash was added to denote the cubic capacity thereof. It was chosen an 8C engine with a 90-degree V, with a displacement of 1.995 cubic centimetres, 4 overhead camshafts, indirect fuel injection, monodisk dry clutch, 6 ahead plus one reverse speed gearbox, self-blocking differential, with a 310 CV SAE power at 9.600 revs/minute. This same engine was then successively mounted on the 33 Stradale and on the Montreal.
The chassis, absolutely atypical and revolutionary, was inspired by the aeronautical engineering and was considered by everybody a technological masterpiece. The tuning of the chassis and of the mechanical parts was not laborious at all, but we cannot say the same as far as the definition of the body is concerned, which showed some initial difficulties of aerodynamic nature and of stability because of the geometry of the suspensions, drawback that was brilliantly worked out.
The prototype was implemented in a little more than one year by the Portello engineers under the guidance of Orazio Satta and Giuseppe Busso, and made its first test coming out on the Balocco track in the month of January 1966, equipped with a provisional TZ2 engine.

Giuseppe Busso with Carlo Chiti
As Busso embittered remembers, in his book of memoirs “In the heart of Alfa”, the prototype was committed to Autodelta’s eng. Chiti in order to undergo a further experimental development phase. A picture in front of the track entrance with Busso beside the car, Sanesi at the steering wheel and Chiti casting glances through the glasses, witnesses the “hand over of offices”.
The first spider version, called “periscopic” owing to the air intake positioned in the upper part of the body, was presented to the press exactly on the Balocco track on March 6, 1967. The next year, with a coupe bodywork, took part to the “Daytona Continental”, one of the world longest car races, only rival of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The three competitor models headed the finish line united, ranking at the first three places. From that event, it was renamed “33 Daytona”. Still in 1968, it gained 15 absolute and 6 class victories, some of which memorable as the ones reached on the Mugello, Imola and Vallelunga circuits. In 1969, with 14 absolute and 13 class victories, confirmed itself as the best European car in the Sport Prototypes 2000 class, making its rivals Ferrari and Porsche disappear from the competition scene. At the end of the season, Alfa gave to privateers the cars, which continued to win in the next year, and abandoned in this way the 2-litre category.
On the chassis and mechanics of the 33/2, designers like Pininfarina, Scaglione , Bertone and Giugiaro carried out the gorgeous “dream cars” that can be admired in the Historical Museum of Arese.
A red 33 Stradale was a movie star too, leading character together with Gina Lollobrigida in the Mauro Bolognini’s film: A wonderful November.
In the Historic Archive photographic albums, there is also a nice picture of the the then Princess Paula of Liège at the wheel of a 33/2 on the Balocco track.
During 1968, it was finished the design of the 33/3 which adopted a spider fibreglass body on a monocoque chassis with aluminium and titanium stress bearing panels. The engine was an 8C with a 90-degree V and a displacement of 2.998 cubic centimetres, with 4 valves per cylinder, electronic ignition and a power of 400 CV at 9000 rev/min. The frame, made out of a box section avional sheet, was different from the one of the 2 litres. Its debut occurrend in 1969 and gained two absolute victories in Zeltweg and at the City of Enna Cup (in Sicily, note of translator). Meanwhile the realization of a new version with an aluminium-alloy tube spaceframe was going on: the 33/TT3 which, in 1972, ranked at the second place in the Word Championship for Makes.
In 1975, a new version made its debut: the 33 TT12 with fibreglass body and a 12-cylinder 2.995-cc boxer engine which developed a power of 500 CV DIN at 11.000 revs/min. With this car, Alfa Romeo won, with the victory in seven out of the eight races in the calendar, the world title by showing an absolute technical superiority. Two years later, the last version of the 33s was introduced: the SC12, with fibreglass body on a box section aluminium frame, which, by winning all the eight races which made up the championship, won the World Sportscars Championship 1977.