The Italian Spaceship - 1976 Alfa Romeo 33 Navajo Concept #Blogpost

Alright, I guess it is time to take a break from BMW Concepts and maybe branch out a little! From one of my books I found the Alfa Romeo Navajo. A car that defined the concept of the wedge shaped design in a period where revolution was what interested the world with mighty machines such as Concorde debuting and the first SuperComputer went into service…

Conception

The Navajo was to be the last concept based on Alfa’s Competition chassis (aka the Type 33 Chassis) produced by various designers throughout the 70’s. At this point the 33 Chassis had been deemed obsolete but yet it was still being used for concepts that would never reach production and the Navajo was no exception. It was created by Bertone to envoke the future of the super car by using a wedge shape design that had pioneered marques such as Lamborghini with the Countach Super Car. The name “Navajo” was used to refer to the Native American Tribe of the same name.

Quirks, Features and Performance (QFP)

The Navajo featured many unusual design quirks and the most known of all is the fact that the Pop-up headlights do not emerge from the usual place on the front-right/left of the bonnet,but instead come out of boths sides of the front fender. Bertone also took inspiration from Giugaro’s 1971 33 Concept called the Caimano and incorporated a similar Trapezoid shape into the rear wing, the wing itself was completely functional active aero, adjusting at speed. Nuccio Bertone himself developed the Trapezoid design feature even further as intakes to draw away heat from the hot V8 engine. On the topic of engines, the Navajo used the same 2.0L Naturally Aspirated V8 from the road-legal 33 Stradale (1967-69), this produced 230hp (171kw or 233PS) at 8,800rpm. The Navajo was also incredibly light weighing in at just 1,918lbs (870kg), this lightweight came from the race derived 33 Chassis and the fibreglass body that was bespoke for the concept.

Fate

The Navajo, as most other concepts, never reached production and was simply a show for the styling expertise of Bertone and it also marked the end of the 33 Chassis’ life, completely discontinued after the Navajo was completed. It was a paramount ending for the 33, a great send-off for the chassis! If only Alfa Romeo had been willing to invest in making a supercar just as outlandish as the Navajo, it could have been incredible. But alas ‘twas not to be and Alfa continued to make splendid cars whether they be hit or miss but the Navajo was never forgotten and always remembered as one of the many outlandish concepts of the 1970’s…

So we conclude yet another blogpost on obscure and relatively unkown concept cars (Yes i know obscure and unknown mean the same thing) and I hope you enjoyed learning about it as much as I did.

I’ll catch you all in the next Blogpost!

Pokecraft The Car Catcher
Lover of Anime And Cars alike

(Just a sidenote, this is my last post before exams from Friday to next Wednesday, but I’ll be lurking in the comment sections so I guess I’m on hiatus for a week…)