AlfaCentro.com Feature Article: An Afternoon with Reeves Callaway


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The setting is a sidewalk restaurant in Laguna Beach CA’s Seaside Village.

HMD (H. Martin de’Campo): Reeves I wanted to thank you for your time today and for meeting with us to talk about the legendary Twin Turbo Alfa Romeos you produced in the mid '80s. What are some of the points you hope to achieve here today?

RC (Reeves Callaway): I believe the collector market will treat these cars with the respect they deserve. It’s time to update the Callaway Alfa Project

HMD: I think that the last article, written by Stan Fisher in 1992 (for the Owner), was the very last one on the Callaway Alfa.

RC: I remember looking it over.

HMD: So how did the whole project start? How did Alfa Romeo and Callaway get involved with the whole project?

RC: We had a short list of companies we wanted to work with out of Europe. Back then Callaway was really a small company doing some really creative and cutting-edge engineering designs. Don Black was the chief engineer at ARI and heard of some of the neat projects we had achieved. It was obvious he'd seen and admired the work we’d done with Volkswagen and other cars. Callaway wanted to have a relationship with a high-end European manufacturer.

Don Black assured us that quality in the GTV6, particularly during its later stages of developmental maturity, was much better. The Maserati Biturbo had just arrived on to the scene and Alfa felt this was their territory: after all, they were the ones that had the Italian version of the well-styled, interesting two door sedan! Don called me and said: “We’re looking at the possibility of upgrading the GTV6 by increasing its performance and we understand that you can do the turbo engineering end of things, but can you do the emissions portion as well? Can you certify cars as compliant vehicles, meet all of our durability requirements and get them out the door?"

HMD: So it sounds like they wanted you to do a lot more than just the engineering on a turbo system for the GTV6, is that fair to say?

RC: Exactly! Alfa Romeo Inc. was an importer, and they were not allowed to modify any of its vehicles. They really wanted us to develop, engineer, install, produce, certify and get it out the door and into the public awareness. So, what they really said was, “Yes, we want your turbo system. But by the way, you also need to be good at PR.” They wanted to retake the marketplace from the Maserati Biturbo and to demonstrate that the Alfa GTV6 was better, faster and nicer looking.

HMD: A lot of us thought that the Twin Turbo was created in response to BMW. You're saying that Alfa was actually more concerned about Maserati's threat than BMW's?

RC: Alfa never thought BMW was a threat because they believed their cars were better than BMW. In Alfa Italy's eyes, ARI was confronted with a major marketing challenge. Remember, the industry is market-driven. Almost all our projects for clients are in response to a market that requires an engineering solution. The fact of the matter is, there aren’t many people who know how to increase the vehicle’s performance, and meet the emissions controls at the same time, all on a long-term basis … and do it in an economical manner. It's a very difficult riddle to solve.

HMD: What happened next?

RC: Don called me and he simply said look, “Together we’ll build the prototypes, two or three of them. You can have all the dyno time necessary, and all the necessary spare parts for the prototype backup.” So it was really like three or 4 prototypes, plus or minus, only one of which survived. The rest were used in the dyno testing, durability testing, fittings and what have you. An “acceptable” car was one that met all their complete durability measures.

HMD: Who set the durability measures, you or Alfa?

RC: Alfa Italy, the manufacturer. This was a project sanctioned by the factory so we had to use their measures. They can save you lots of time and help you avoid many pitfalls when engineering a system such as this. If they have better stuff, better parts, they need to tell you. If there are any benchmarks that can make our job easier, they need to be communicated.

Don Black said just the right things to satisfy any concerns that Alfa Italy may have had. We began to trust that we were in good hands despite the potential for NIH. Don Black is a good engineer, and you know how it is, engineers speak the same language. After a few months we began to have a good personal relationship: you sort of test and prod one another and together learn that things are fine. And so the project began to evolve.

The things we could not change were emissions, catalyst loading, and the engine management system. Remember how difficult we thought the Federal emission laws were in those days. They're 200 times more difficult today, and make that stuff look like kindergarten.

HMD: But you guys also “CARBed” (California Air Resources Board – a more restrictive standard) the Alfa product as well, right?

RC: By demonstrating California compliance we showed that we were going further than anyone. Emissions controls were getting so difficult, it was a trial-and-error process. The project was quite an undertaking. We had to satisfy the factory, convert the car competently from an engineering standpoint and do it at a reasonable cost.

Continued on Page 3.

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