The first part of this attempt to revisit the industrial history of Alfa Romeo finished on a dramatic stage: Alfa Romeo was on the verge of closure, and only a miraculous move lead to the removal of Managing Director Orazi, entrusted to arrange the liquidation of the company, and his replacement with a high profile manager, Ugo Gobbato, now in charge to restructure Alfa Romeo and upgrade its capacity to successfully meet the needs of Mussolini’s regime for advanced mechanical industries able to provide military supplies for the then forthcoming wars.

This chapter will focus on the years 1933 to 1945, a shorter period than covered by chapter one (1906-1933), and Ugo Gobbato will without doubt be the key character of the whole period, the end of the war coinciding – no coincidence indeed – with his death. Some further famous and/or controversial figures will also appear, such as Jano and Ricart. Mussolini will also never be far away.

This is also the most paradoxical part of Alfa Romeo’s history: at the same time, it was the brightest time for the ultimate in Alfa’s cars: the 8C2900 is rated as world’s best pre- war sports car, certainly a high point in the production of Alfa Romeo, yet at no other stage of the company life has car production been so marginal with respect to the overall activity of the factory. Roughly 35 2.9s were produced over 5 years and, overall, car production accounted for a maximum of 5% of the total activity in the late 30s. Cars were already not central in our focus for the first chapter, but they will be even less so in this second one.

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