When the stylish Datsun 240Z arrived in late 1969, Autocar rather struggled to come up with any cars to fairly pitch it against.
There were some rivals around, such as the ageing MG B-GT, but it took until 1972 for us to find one that properly matched the Japanese sports car on size, weight, performance and price – although it didn't come in the form we had expected.
The car in question was the 2000 GTV, the latest member of Alfa Romeo's obfuscated 105/115 coupé series, which were derived from the Giulia saloon.
The two-seat 240Z was powered by a six-cylinder single-overhead-camshaft engine. The 2.4-litre unit pumped out 150bhp at 5600rpm, sending drive to the rear wheels through a five-speed manual gearbox. The suspension was by MacPherson struts front and rear. The car was priced at £2309 (equivalent to £28,963 today).
The Bertone-designed GTV, meanwhile, had a two-plus-two seating layout. It too sent its power to the rear wheels, this was provided by a four-cylinder, 2.0-litre twin-cam engine producing 131bhp at 5500rpm. The gearbox was a five-speed manual, while the suspension was comparatively old-fashioned, with double wishbones and coil springs at the front and a live rear axle with trailing arms and an anti-roll bar at the rear. We specified our test car with the optional limited slip differential, taking its price to £2587 (or £32,500 in today's money).
It should be noted that the discrepancy in power was the product of odd maths, with Datsun measuring by the "optimistic" SAE system, rather than Europe's DIN.
Back on 14 September 1972, Autocar compared the two models.
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So cool we have both!
We have both these cars in our garage and they are both from 1972! Mine is the Alfa Romeo 2000 GTV in Le Mans Blue while my father-in-law's car is the Datsun 240Z in Red. Both cars are in excellent shape especially the Zed. It's had a full ground up restoration while my Alfa is in need of a some attention it drives brilliantly. I recently upgraded the suspension and wheels which has improved handling. Both cars are a joy to drive!
What a nice car this Alfa !
What a nice car this Alfa !
Alfa Romeo 2000GTV vs Datsun 240Z
I may have only been a boy at the time but yes I remember the UK motoring press sneering at the Datsun 240Z, how dare Datsun produce a sports car,after all they were good for were little cars that were well equipped and didn't break down. Hindsight is a wonderful thing but the Datsun 240Z along with the slightly later Honda Civic showed how deadly serious the Japanese were about producing high quality vehicles to compete with the world's best,who'd have thought in just a decade both the MGB & TR7 sports cars were dead and Triumph only hung on by producing Honda cars from kits supplied from Japan. I had to suppress a snigger reading the statement comparing the Alfa's superior trim and quality to the Datsun. Does anyone remember the Alfa Romeo Arna/Nissan Cherry Europe what happened when Alfa got their hands on a Nissan design. Nearly five decades after this article Alfa have only recently started to recover from a slump in design and quality that has dipped since the 1970's,while Nissan has gone from strength to strength.