Today I am taking part in the blog tour for The Colletta Cassettes by Bruno Noble. And today Bruno is sharing about the Alfa Romeo versus the Lancia. **And if you are lucky enough to live in the UK, there is a giveaway going on to win some books, including The Colletta Cassettes!

The Colletta Cassettes is available now!

Book Description:

Liguria, Italy. Summer 1978.

The Kentish family are on holiday in idyllic medieval village of Colletta. Sixteen-year-old Sebastian is smitten with Rosetta, the hotel cleaner and waitress, much to his snobbish mother’s dismay, while his younger brother and their fellow hotel guests are obsessed by the World Cup, hosted by the murderous military junta in Argentina.

The boys’ father, Peter Kentish, has very different motivations for the trip. An investigative journalist, he spends much of his time interviewing a mysterious American, a disillusioned ex-CIA agent.

As Kentish uncovers the shocking extent of Operation Gladio, he delves into some of Italy’s darkest secrets. Darker still is the involvement of the USA. Those complicit will do anything to ensure that the truth is buried. For good.

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Alfa Romeo versus Lancia

By Bruno Noble

I was playing football in the street with my friends when my father pulled up in a brand new white Alfetta.  He let the engine idle as we gathered around it and depressed the accelerator to transform the gurgle into a growl and then into a throaty roar.  How he grinned!  I grew to love the sound.  It would advertise my father’s return home from work or a night out.  It was distinguishable from the engine noise of every other car in the street.  Today one can type ‘Alfa Romeo engine sound’ in YouTube and listen to countless examples of the Alfetta’s now legendary ‘twin cam’ engine.  There aren’t many YouTube videos of the noise of other mainstream automotive manufacturers’ cars.

During the 70s, however, Alfa Romeo and other Italian car manufacturers sourced low quality steel from the Soviet Union, and my father’s Alfetta became so rusty so quickly that it was replaced within two years with a red one.  He passed the red Alfetta on to me, and I drove it into my mid-20s until I sold it for 10p to an Alfa enthusiast who wanted it for the Pininfarina-signed steering wheel – by that time only one door opened, only one window worked and the boot wouldn’t lock.  But it still drove beautifully, which is why Alfistas – Alfa Romeo lovers – adored the cars: because the engines and the driving experience were so good.  The Alfetta’s transaxle layout – with the engine at the front and the gearbox at the rear – helped achieve a perfect 50:50 weight distribution, giving the car excellent road-handling characteristics.  The twin-cam engines just ‘sang’: they provided the soundtrack to many young lives in the 70s and 80s.  And to many films of the time as well.

The Alfetta was a sports saloon: it was the first family car on the market that drove like a sports car.  The police drove them.  Prime Minister Aldo Moro’s bodyguards drove them.  They were shot dead by his kidnappers in a white one on 16 March 1978, the virginal whiteness of the car in the press photographs contrasting ironically and horribly with the policeman’s uniforms and the body in the street.

The other car mentioned in The Colletta Cassettes is a Lancia.  I don’t specify which type of Lancia, but I had in mind the Fulvia, not the sleek Coupé but the boxy Berlina.  A true Alfista speaks the word Lancia through gritted teeth.  The rivalry between Alfa Romeo and Lancia in the 70s and 80s was intense, with both competing in touring car racing and in rallying, where Lancia dominated.  In terms of road car rivalry, Lancias were considered more luxurious and Alfa Romeos more sporty.

At the time when The Colletta Cassettes is set – 1978 – Alfistas could turn their noses up at Lancias, saying that they were Fiats in disguise, as Fiat had acquired Lancia in 1969.  (Fiat would go on to acquire Alfa Romeo in 1986.)  As I recall it, Italians were either pro-Alfas or pro-Lancias – it was the automotive equivalent of preferring either the Rolling Stones or the Beatles.

For me, there was only one make of car that Peter Kentish, our intrepid journalist and reporter en route in Italy to uncover the C.I.A.’s dirty deeds in Italian politics, could be driving.  And only one make of car that the Mafia would be driving.

About the Author:

Bruno Noble study Philosophy and French literature at Southampton University.  A circuitous route selling advertising space in financial magazines took him to the City where, amongst other things, he wrote markets and investment reports while impatient to write a novel.  His first, ‘A Thing of the Moment’, was published by Unbound in 2018, and his second, ‘The Colletta Cassettes’, was published by Indie Novella in 2022 before being re-published by Inkspot Publishing in 2025.

Having enjoyed working collaboratively with other writers when he joined the Collier Street Fiction Group in 2021, Bruno started a part-time (two-year) Creative Writing M.A. at Birkbeck University in 2024.

UK GIVEAWAY

Win 3 x Stacks of 5 Inkspot Publishing books

Enter Here:

https://gleam.io/yhGHQ/win-3-x-stacks-of-5-inkspot-publishing-books-uk-only

*Terms and Conditions –UK entries welcome.  Please enter using the Gleam box below.  The winner will be selected at random via Gleam from all valid entries and will be notified by Twitter and/or email. If no response is received within 7 days then Rachel’s Random Resources reserves the right to select an alternative winner. Open to all entrants aged 18 or over.  Any personal data given as part of the competition entry is used for this purpose only and will not be shared with third parties, with the exception of the winners’ information. This will passed to the giveaway organiser and used only for fulfilment of the prize, after which time Rachel’s Random Resources will delete the data.  I am not responsible for despatch or delivery of the prize.

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