This great looking classic Italian Police or "Polizia" car is part of Minichamps range of classic 1:18th scale Alfa-Romeos. Fans of the 1969 Michael Caine movie "The Italian Job" (of which I'm a big one!) will recognise this type of Alfa Giulia Police car as the same used unsuccessfully by the Turin Police to stop the three Mini Cooper S's getting away with the gold in the film. The police livery and colouring of the Alfas in the movie are different, but the type of car is the same.
The car itself is the Alfa-Romeo Giulia Super with a 1.5 litre double overhead cam four cylinder engine driving the rear wheels through a five speed gearbox. With around 100bhp, these small saloons very considered very sporty for their day, and were popular with Italian Police forces as a result. Most later cars (including this one from 1970) have four wheel disc brakes. The 1.5 Giulia Saloon was made by Alfa between 1962 and 1972, and approximately 200,000 in total were made. A further 260,000 1.3 litre Giulias (which are easily differentiated from the 1.5s as they only have single headlights) were built between 1964 and 1972.
This is a nice model, but it is not Minichamps best effort in 1:18th to date. The weakest parts of the model for me are the headlights which look terrible thanks to an all too visible central locating pin in the centre of each lamp. There is almost no brake detail at all on the model, which is a shame, even though the wheel design hides the view of the brakes unless examining the model from below. Nice touches include the wiring in the engine bay and the added police features such as a radio, roof aerial and the solitary blue light on top.
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