Alfa Romeo 8C. Like Ettore Bugatti, Alfa Romeo's Vittorio Jano was an artist as well as a design

His work at its peak was epitomised by the straight-eight supercharged Tipo 8C, in which he embodied several basic 6C engine features including the same 65 x 68mm bore and stroke as the 1750 six, with the addition of two more cylinders to give 2336cc and 142bhp. The blocks were cast in two pairs, with a central gear train driv-ing the twin ohc, a single Roots compressor and oil and water pumps. The paired cylinder heads were of light alloy with phosphor-bronze valve inserts, and the crankshaft, built in two halves, bolted centrally to the primary timing gear and ran in ten plain bearings at up to 5000rpm. It was an engine of classic beauty but consider-able cost, and without the spur of Mussolini's government and the will to win races, Alfa Romeo could scarcely have afforded to produce it. It was installed in chassis of three different lengths, having semi-elliptic springing all round and wheelbases of 264cm, 274cm or 310cm. The shortest was for Grand Prix racing, when the 8C became known as the Monza; the medium length was the two-seater sports car, wearing rakish spyder bodywork; the longest car-ried four-seater bodywork complying with contemporary AIACR race regulations. Displacing Britain's big Bentleys from domination at Le Mans, Alfa's lithe, high-revving, blown straight-eights won the 24-hour classic four years in a row, from 1931 to 1934. Similar domination was enjoyed by the shorter wheelbase 8Cs in the Mille Miglia and other long-distance European races, indicating that the car was more substantial than its feline grace suggested. As road cars they were dramatically fast, with a maximum of over 185kph (115mph). They required more careful maintenance than the older sixes and handled like the thoroughbreds they were, high-ly sensitive and very fast but stable in cornering. Aesthetically, few other cars could match the glorious sweeping lines achieved by Italy's best coachbuilders, such as Zagato, Touring and Castagna, and the cars' appearance was further enhanced by the large wire wheels with huge-diameter aluminium alloy drum brakes. In the forcing house of motor racing, Alfa Romeo's 8C 2300 engines grew to 2.6, 2.9 and then to 3.2 litres, powering the famous P3 Monoposto Grand Prix single-seaters from 1932 to 1935 in twin-supercharged form. By then, however, they were outmoded by the much more powerful German cars, and new 12-cylinder units were developed. The old straight-eights nevertheless remained eminently suitable for use in sports cars and sports car racing. A batch of 2.9-litre twin-supercharged units was prepared, detuned to give 180bhp at 5200rpm, and fitted to all-new chassis with welded box-section side members. Instead of the time-honoured rigid axles and semi-elliptic springs, they had all-independent suspension of the type used on the 1935-37 Grand Prix Alfas, comprising trailing links and coil springs in unit with hydraulic dampers at the front, and swing axles and a transverse leaf spring at the rear, with combined hydraulic and friction dam-pers. A four-speed gearbox was mounted rigidly in unit with the 1938 8C 2900 (1938 Mille Miglia car)final drive, connected with the front-mounted engine by a dry multi-plate clutch and a long propeller shaft with a centre bearing.

Three prototypes of this advanced new sports car took the first three places in the 1936 Mille Miglia, and a production model, the Type 8C 2900B, was marketed in 1937 with the usual long (300cm) and short (274cm) wheelbase options. Beautiful coachwork by such firms as Touring and Pinin Farina was available, outstanding examples being the works cars (with more powerful 220bhp engines) bodied by Carrozzeria Touring for the 1938 Mille Miglia. Based on the 274cm chassis, these had superbly formed two-seater spyder bodies built to the firm's Superleg-gera (super-light) system of construction, with light alloy tube fram-ing supporting light alloy panelling; their weight was slightly over 1000kg and two of them finished first and second in the Mille Miglia. Thirty examples of the 2900B, probably the world's fastest pre-war production sports car, were produced. They were the last Alfa Romeo sports cars to be designed under Jano's supervision.

8C 2900 Engine: straight eight; 68 x 100mm, 2905cc; twin Roots-type superchargers; twin carburettors; 180bhp at 5200rpm (com-petition cars 225bhp at 5200rpm). Gearbox: four-speed manual transaxie. Chassis: box-section side members; front suspension independent by trailing links and coil spring/damper units; rear suspension in-dependent by transverse leaf spring, swing axles and hydraulic/ friction dampers; four-wheel hydraulic drum brakes. Dimensions: wheelbase 2 79cm/110in or 300cm/118in; track 13 5cm/53in.