The new brand was only 3 year old, when the chief engineer Merosi was able to build a purely racing car, which came to be known, as model 40—60НР.
And in deed this was a true sports car! The 40-60 HP offered a unique for its time performance and was very low on fuel consumption, especially taking into consideration that it had over 6 liter of cylinder capacity, managed by overhead valves driven by rods and rockers, and had another trait that would long be that of Alfa, two camshafts in the crankcase. This powertrain produced an impressive 82 hp. There was a total of 27 cars produced which participated in races and had brought victories all the way until year 1922.
Being fascinated with the racing fame, the newly established company seemed to be little concerned about profitability. The 
hot-tempered Italian manufacturers seemed to have little money to be invested in the factory, the dealership network was not developing – the cars were being sold in Italy alone. All the efforts to bust the number of produced cars were able to achieve only a number of 272 in the year 1914. At that time Europe was at the brink of war, the industry was fueled only by governmental orders, for which A.L.F.A., not having proper connections, could not even contend. This was the first time when the company came really close to going bankrupt.
Alfa was rescued by Romeo. Neapolitan entrepreneur Nicola Romeo, being an experienced engineer in the field of excavation machinery and the owner of several nearby factories, joined his existing factories with A.L.F.A. production and in 1915, now having in his possession considerable production facilities, got from the government orders for the production of avia generators and avia compressors, light trucks and sanitary vehicles. More so, that Alfa already had the experience in production of airplane engines – be it their own or those it made under license of Isotta Fraschini.
What followed was that the entrepreneur’s last name was added to A.L.F.A. and a new “Alfa-Romeo Milano” brand name came into existence. For the time being, the racing adventures were put on hold, while munitions, aircraft engines and other components, based on the company’s existing car engines were produced in a greatly enlarged factory. Upon the demise of war, Nicola Romeo invested the war profits in buying locomotive and railways carriage plants in Saronno, Rome and Naples, which were adjusted to his Alfa ownership.
Initially, car production had not been considered at all, but it was resumed in 1919, since there were parts for the assembly of 105 cars still stored at the A.L.F.A. factory left from the times preceding the break of War. In the year 1920, the name of the company was changed once again, this time to Alfa Romeo, while Torpedo 20-30 HP became the first car carrying this name. This was followed with another success when in 1920 Giuseppe Campari won the Mugello race and was continued by the second place in Targa Florio won by Enzo Ferrari. Giuseppe Merosi continued on his post of the head designer, and the factory continued to bring out impressive road cars as well as successful racing cars, the first signified by the luxury RL and the second by the impressive sports car 40-60 HP. Car were once again in the spot light and took the centre stage.
Similar to the legendary 40-60HP, the RL, designed by Merosi in 1921, came equipped once again with a six-cylinder engine with 
rockers and overhead valves mounted on special brakes to eliminate the vibrations. Though it was designed to be a luxury road car, it was used in racing as well, namely for the sake of advertising. As the result the RL was a major success, with over 2640 cars built and with orders coming in from all corners of Europe.
To be continued…