In 1945, Gobbato was murdered and the task of demilitarising Alfa Romeo was entrusted to Pasquale Gallo. Meanwhile, Orazio Satta Puliga and his team took over management of the design department. Production slowly started up again, but it was by then clear that the company could no longer continue to make elitist and hand-crafted cars and would have industrialise its production.
In the meantime, the “Alfetta” 158 and 159 models dominated the first two World Championships in the new Formula 1 class and the 1900 made its début on the market, the first car produced without a separate chassis and made on an assembly line.
At the beginning of the Fifties, Giuseppe Luraghi joined the top management of the company, where he would remain until 1974. It would be a period of enormous development: the Giulietta and Giulia models would bring unexpected growth to Alfa Romeo, with an image return beyond all prediction. At the beginning of the Seventies, construction would begin on the new plant in Arese and the Balocco race track.
Lastly, the Alfasud project would be launched, while “Alfa Nord” would put the ultra-modern Alfetta into production along with the models derived from it: modern, fast, technologically advanced cars appreciated by the market.
The energy crisis and a difficult social, trade union, political and management situation, however, soon brought new problems.
In 1986, the Alfa Romeo crisis seemed irreversible and Finmeccanica was forced to sell the company to the Fiat Group. Controversial years followed in which racing and commercial successes were alternated with much less prosperous times. It was the period of the 164 and the 155, up to the great progress marked by the 156, 147, 8C Competizione, Mito and Giulietta. And at last the 4C, which is openening up a new era. In the meantime, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles has been set up and the foundations have been laid for a great revival that will start precisely from Alfa Romeo, from Milao, from its tradition and from its future.
