I came so close once. A comparison I’d dreamed up and had been trying to make happen for a couple of years was about to come to fruition. The Alfa GTV lived in Palm Springs, so we decided to hold it there. All we needed now was the Chevy Cosworth Vega to arrive from the greater San Diego area. I waited in the hotel as the sun dipped lower and lower.
It’s the comparison no one was clamoring for, one that’s bound to have enthusiasts up in arms and that seems obvious in retrospect. Well, obvious to me, anyway. Fuel-injected 2.0-liter twin-cam fours, backed by five-speeds, in solid-axle rear-wheel-drive sports coupes. Each cost around six grand in mid-’70s money—premium cash, to be sure. The Vega always seemed so misunderstood. Any compliment it garnered was guaranteed to get the Alfisti’s collective panties in a bunch. All the more reason to make it happen, I thought.
Alas, our Chevy had an issue en route, and as it was my last assignment of the week, I checked out of the hotel and drove home, contemplating what might have been.
Now, years later, I find myself wondering about this once again. I’m thus going forward with this comparison based on separate experiences with each car. Neither was cheap in the mid-’70s, a time when the notion of a premium-priced small car had yet to catch on. Their initial missions were to satisfy two different markets, yet this pair remains strikingly similar in their details. The $6,450 Alfa was born hot, an enthusiast’s vehicle by design; the $5,918 Cosworth Vega had to be coaxed to bring out its full potential. Do we furrow our brow at Lordstown, Ohio’s finest and wonder why Chevy bothered? Or do we admire them for going after a market that would eventually prove fruitful?
Much hay is made of the Cosworth Vega’s sticker price, which fell within $1,000 of a new Corvette. (Few noted that it cost about $500 less than a comparable Alfa and packed much of the same technology.)
Alfa’s twin-cam four launched in the ’50s and continued on into the ’70s in 2.0-liter form and in rude health. With mechanical SPICA fuel injection and 9.0:1 compression, the all-aluminum mill was rated at 129 horsepower in 1974, the last year the GTV came to the states. (By the end of the ’70s, the same basic package was rated at 115 horses in the Alfetta, the GTV’s replacement.)
Though the Vega’s all-aluminum four started life as a 2.2-liter, Cosworth’s work shortened the crank stroke by half an inch, to 3.16 inches, which brought displacement to 2.0 liters. Internals included high-compression forged-aluminum pistons, high-performance camshafts, solid lifters, a forged crankshaft, and shot-peened rods. The new aluminum DOHC head sported 16 valves and Bosch electronic fuel injection; compression was a relatively low 8.5:1. Early versions tested as strong as 160 horsepower, but final production versions (saddled with a pulse-air-injection reactor and a single catalytic converter) generated just 110 net horsepower—not quite up to the GTV’s number, but certainly in contention with a later Alfetta’s. With a few hundred more pounds, less power, and suboptimal gearing—five-speed ’76 Cosworth Vegas had a 4.10 rear, the Alfa had a 4.56 final-drive gear—the Vega wasn’t going to win any straight-line competition against the GTV.
But Alfas and Vegas were not built to be straight-line cars. They are small, nimble, and able to carry speed into turns. So, let’s go for a spin.
Inside, there’s no mistaking one for the other. The first surprise is that there’s room for real American-sized human beings in the Vega: The big (well, relatively big) doors open wide, and getting in is not an issue. The houndstooth-covered buckets could used a bit more support once you’re in place, but they’re mounted low enough that there’s a surprising amount of headroom, definitely more than you’d expect in a car that comes up to the middle of your chest. The engine-turned appliqué is as sporty as what came on Trans Ams of the era, but this one was tinted gold to continue the black-and-gold theme used in most of these cars.
The bulge in the hood, not exclusive to the Cosworth, manages to look suitably aggressive. It’s not terribly functional beyond creating underhood clearance, but it’s still degrees cooler than the vast, flat expanse of steel you saw through most windshields of the age. The steering wheel feels a little skinny—perhaps this was in response to Corvette owners freaking out that their steering wheel ended up in Vegas (or was it that Vega wheels ended up in Corvettes?)—but not unheard of for this time.
The GTV has you in a more reclined position, but because everything islow in this car, headroom isn’t nearly as compromised as you’d suspect from the outside. The Alfa’s small-diameter, wood-rimmed wheel helps a bit.
The Alfa’s interior—withstrips of wood across the instrument panel and console, Tobacco vinyl on the seats and door panels, and cosseting buckets of a lumbar-friendly shape—feels warmer and richer than the Vega’s. The GTV wants you to remember the interior as part of your sporting experience, and you do, but you also remember that it’s noticeably narrower in here than in the Vega. Spanning three fewer inches across than the Chevy, the Alfa required us to hang our arm out the rolled-down window to feel comfortable.
Turn the key, press the clutch, and take stock. The Vega’s clutch is light enough that your foot goes straight to the floor, and the engine quickly settles into a 1,300-rpm hum, its chatty mechanical thrum sending a shiver through the shifter that blurs the printed gear pattern atop the handle. It’s the engine, not the exhaust, making the noise. The SPICA-injected twin-cam Alfa is only marginally smoother at its 800-rpm idle but sounds every bit as characterful.
Acceleration in both is instantaneous: There’s no carburetor aspirating a lungful of air before you move, just instant throttle response. And what’s this dogleg first gear on the Vega’s five-speed? Sporting, indeed. The shifter is stiff, but the clutch is light, so light you can barely feel it engaging as you lift your leg. Somewhere north of two grand things start happening, and as is the case in so many naturally aspirated 16-valve fours we’ve driven, real power comes online around 3,000 rpm. It revs strong and clear through the 6,500-rpm redline. Layers of sound gradually introduce themselves, and every 1,000 revs you go above three grand gives an entirely new tone to the proceedings. The Alfa revs harder and is geared to do so; taking advantage of this is a pleasure. All of the controls offer tactility and feedback and react positively to the slightest touch.
Both cars had fantastic amounts of grip from their modern, slightly-wider-than-factory radial rubber. The 13-inch radials our Vega wore (sized in the nearest metric equivalent to tires that were originally manufactured in English measure) have a tall 80-series aspect ratio but manage not to feel wobbly. The Vega is planted. It tracks straight as a laser, and the ride quality is surprisingly smooth considering the short wheelbase. (There’s still lots of communication with the road through the wheel, however.) It’s surprising because, well, it’s a Vega. The Alfa hunkers down in bends and feels both controlled and comfortable while ladling in heaping helpings of brio and passione and all of those other clichés one attributes to an Alfa. It’s an entertaining ride, one that seeks a deep connection with your soul and psyche. It’s everything you’d hoped.
Today, it’s hard to go wrong with either. Both have high-tech hearts and the moves to make you want to dance behind the wheel. Both offer high-revving, hard-cornering sports-car thrills in a buttoned-down body. The Vega is a little more comfortable, and the Alfa is a little more hardcore. The Alfa is more snug for you and a passenger, but you can rev that all-alloy twin-cam four to the heavens, and the chorus of angels stuffed up the exhaust will sing you dramatically on the way. It’s sexier than a midnight screening of Bound. With Alfa’s occasional (and known) reliability issues, there’s also an element of danger about it, although (as our scuttled Cosworth Vega photoshoot proved) that element lives within the breast of every vintage car.
We still can’t help but to admire the Cosworth Vega, even in the face of such illustrious company. Its hand-built nature demanded a high price, although the notion of a hand-built Vega still manages to raise eyebrows. But consider that a standard Vega, with the stone-reliable Iron Duke underhood, was cranking out only 78 net horses at the same time. The 110-hp Cosworth, in an era of 145-hp, 350-cube small-block Chevys, was punching well above its weight.
Production-wise, the long-lasting Alfa saw tens of thousands of examples built over the course of nearly a decade, while Chevrolet built just 3,508 Cosworth Vegas in 1975-’76 before pulling the plug. If rarity is your bag, then the Cosworth has the Alfa beat. One more thing the Chevy has going for it: affordability. If other Vegas had started out with the power and reliability of this one, the Vega name would have been a legend rather than a punchline. Sale average for a top-notch Cosworth remains below $20,000; today, a comparable Alfa—despite being built in far greater numbers—will run you three times that. Drive them both and ask yourself: Is the Alfa three times the car that the Vega is?
