The Alfa Romeo car company started its business in 1910 as A.L.F.A. (Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica di Automobili), growing out of the company Societa Italiana Automobili Daracq, the latter being the Italian offshoot of a French car company. The first cars were based a little on some French cars, but soon A.L.F.A. was producing its own, designed by Giuseppe Merosi. Production continued with three main models using engines of 2413cc, 4084cc and 6082cc capacity. In the early years of production there were financial issues and so in 1915 the A.L.F.A. car company was taken over by Nicola Romeo. Production of cars stopped during the war and instead necessary items to assist the war were produced, however in 1918 production began again of revised pre-war models and its name changed to ALFA-ROMEO.
The first car designed by the new Alfa Romeo management was the G1 in 1920, a large touring car. With some engine modifications this became the G2 in 1921. In 1922 the RL series cars, with 3000 six cylinder push-rod OHV engines, were introduced, including the RLN (21/70hp) ‘Normale’, the RLT (22/70hp) ‘Turismo’, RLS and RLSS (22/90hp).They were followed the following year by the RM series models, a smaller version with 2000 four cylinder engines and RM, RMS ‘Sport’ and RMU ‘Unificato’ versions (15/50hp an 15/55hp). In all the above cars, the first number is the approximate horsepower, the second the approximate top speed. These cars were the last designed by Merosi.
In 1923 Jano began working for Alfa Romeo, and his first design was the successful Formula 1 car, the P2. Production cars soon followed, in 1927 began the production of the 6C 1500, designating a six cylinder 1500cc engine. Originally this was a sohc producing 44bhp, but dohc versions soon took over. These were both normally aspirated and supercharged, producing around 54 and 76 bhp respectively. In 1929 bigger 1750 versions were introduced, both in sohc (45bhp) and dohc (55bhp) form. Again a supercharged version was also available, producing 85bhp.
