Description:

1984/85 Alfa Romeo GTV6 Group A / Group 1 

Rob Kirby | British Saloon Car Championship

My dad, Rob Kirby, started driving for the UK Alfa Romeo dealer team in 1978, racing Alfasuds and Alfasud Sprints with Napolina sponsorship. Alongside this, he competed in production saloons supporting the British Saloon Car Championship in Napolina-liveried Alfetta GTVs.

For 1984, Dad secured John West sponsorship to step up with the Alfa Romeo GTV6. Alfa Romeo and Autodelta supplied the car and the Group A competition components, including suspension, brakes, gearbox and engine parts. The arrangement was simple: they supplied the parts and Dad built the car.

It was constructed in our family road-car workshop, Premier Garage in Newport.

Dad raced the GTV6 throughout the 1984 and 1985 British Saloon Car Championship seasons, culminating in winning the Class B Championship in 1985. It was a significant achievement for a small, family-run operation competing against increasingly professional and works-supported teams.

For 1986, Alfa Romeo wanted the team to move to the new Alfa 75. As much of the running gear was shared between the two cars, the GTV6 was stripped and its Autodelta components transferred into the 75. The bare GTV6 shell was sold and continued competing in club events until 1995, when it was very heavily crashed.

Dad’s Alfa 75 had suffered a similar fate years earlier following a major accident on the Brands Hatch Grand Prix circuit in 1987. The car was stripped and the valuable competition components returned to Premier Garage, where they were stored away.

Around twenty years later, I started looking at all the old Alfa parts that had been sitting on shelves in the workshop and began figuring out exactly what they were and where they had come from.

Eventually, I managed to locate parts of the GTV6 shell. It had survived, although it was still destroyed from its 1995 accident. I sourced a donor GTV6 and we carefully incorporated a few pieces of surviving original structure, as repair panels. 

More importantly, the original Autodelta competition components that had passed from the GTV6 into the 75, and then returned to the workshop following Dad’s 1987 accident, were still there.

I rebuilt the GTV6 at Premier Garage, the same family workshop where Dad had originally built it for the 1984 season. It went back onto the same workshop ramp, we used the same welder and the same paint booth. Dad painted the car himself, and even the original signwriter who lettered it in period returned to recreate the John West livery.

Some of the parts had barely moved in the intervening years. The original steering wheel, removed from the 75 in 1987, simply hung from a nail in the workshop until I took it down again in 2017, thirty years later, to return it to the car.

The original switch panel also survives, including the start, ignition and fuel switches. Remarkably, these are genuine wartime items originally used in Lancaster bombers. As the workshop was located on Duxford airfield before Newport. 

Specification

Original Autodelta Group A Components

* Front uprights

* Inverted lower wishbone ball-joint arrangement

* Top ball joints

* Twin AP Racing front-caliper brake arrangement

* Torsion bars

* Torsion-bar adjusters

* Rear A-frame

* Rear brake system

* Clutch housing

* Flywheels

* Clutch

* Propshaft

The inlet system additionally uses custom-manufactured intake runners with internal trumpets inside the Autodelta plenum, the preferred arrangement for extracting power from these engines.

Surviving Original Race-Car Components

* Original steering wheel

* Original dashboard

* Original gauges

* Original engine-bay installation components

* Original switch panel

* Original wartime Lancaster bomber start, ignition and fuel switches

* Two sets of 16-inch Revolution split-rim wheels

The rev counter is a modern Stack unit for reliability, but I modified the face with a custom reproduction of the original Jones rev-counter design. It is a small detail, but one that keeps the appearance of the original dashboard.

Current Competition Specification

The car has been reconstructed to current FIA safety standards rather than simply being restored as a static historic car.

* FIA-compliant welded 6 point steel roll cage

* Compliant competition fuel system

* Current-specification fire-extinguisher system

* Silenced rear-exit exhaust system

* Interchangeable side-exit competition exhausts

* Two sets of Revolution 16-inch split-rim wheels

* FIA papers ready to be applied for (pre verified by fia inspector and fia number applied for, can be fully carried out for asking price)

Current Engine

The car is complete, running and usable with its present mildly tuned V6 producing approximately 180 bhp.

Full Race Engine

A separate, top-specification race engine package is included with the car. All of the major components are new and it is ready for final assembly.

* Custom racing pistons

* Custom connecting rods

* Bespoke race camshafts developed by myself specifically for the engine

* Completely redesigned crank and cam-belt drive arrangement

* Bespoke billet-machined components

* Fully balanced rotating assembly

* Superfinished components

* Estimated maximum engine speed of 8,500 rpm

* Estimated output of 250 to 255 bhp

The engine represents the intended ultimate development specification for the car and requires final assembly rather than further fundamental development.

Competition & Provenance History

* 1978: Dad begins racing for the UK Alfa Romeo dealer team in Napolina-sponsored Alfasuds and Alfasud Sprints, alongside production-saloon competition in Alfetta GTVs.

* 1984: Dad secures John West sponsorship for the British Saloon Car Championship. Alfa Romeo and Autodelta supply the GTV6 and Group A competition components, with Dad building the car himself at Premier Garage, Newport.

* 1984: The GTV6 contests its first British Saloon Car Championship season.

* 1985: Dad contests a second BSCC season in the GTV6 and wins the Class B Championship.

* 1986: Alfa Romeo moves the team onto the Alfa 75. The GTV6 is stripped and its Autodelta running gear transferred into the new car. The GTV6 shell is subsequently sold.

* 1987: Dad heavily crashes the Alfa 75 on the Brands Hatch Grand Prix circuit. The surviving competition components are removed and stored at Premier Garage.

* 1995: The original GTV6 shell, having continued in club competition, is heavily crashed.

* Reconstruction: I rebuild the car with the original Autodelta and Kirby competition components, plus many small details and features, tools and components.

* Rebuilt at Premier Garage: The reconstruction takes place in the same workshop, on the same ramp and using the same welder and paint booth as the original 1984 build. We build the car to as close as possible to how it was originally, including oil cooler style, location etc. ALL small details thought of and completed.  It is honestly too much to describe, and I shall show you upon viewing. Dad paints the car and the original signwriter recreates its John West livery.

* Present day: Complete and running at approximately 180 bhp, with the separate 250 to 255 bhp, 8,500 rpm full-race engine package ready for assembly and FIA papers to be applied for.

Sale

The car is complete and running and will be supplied with the unassembled full-race engine package and two sets of wheels.

Genuine Autodelta ETCC cars have sold for figures in excess of €225,000. I would like to see around £150,000 for this car, although I am open to a sensible conversation.

This car's eligibility for historic racing will put you either on the MRL or Peter auto touring car grids, or Goodwood / HRDC / CTCRC Group 1 grids. Minor changes to be made to get the car group 1 eligible (front brake calipers, wheels)

It is a difficult car to put a conventional value on. There is the British Saloon Car Championship history, the original Autodelta Group A components and, perhaps most importantly to me, more than forty years of my family’s history tied up in one car.

Selling it is not a decision I’ve taken lightly, and I’m sure there will be an element of regret when it goes, but both Dad and I agree that it is the right step.

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