Author: hamilton.mm

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Market 201: clean 1600 Spider in Florida

Update 4/26/10:  Car has been sold as of 4/4/10.  I imagine the selling price was a little shy of the asking, perhaps about $26k?

Giulia Spider 10123*373471, 00112*15253. This car is currently listed as for sale on the Alfa BB out of Florida.  Asking price is $28,500 which includes a Pininfarina hard top to be restored and an original Giulia Spider hood.  I would call this restored to very nice driver condition.  Not necessarily original or perfect but attractive and usable.

The money shot for sure, like a mature super model in sunsets orange glow.  Remember that this is what the average person sees before you go and pick the details that are not perfect apart.

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SS Veglia gauge restore part 2 -finale-

I am back from vacation but need a few days to see what’s going on and get back into the swing of things so another rerun for you all. 

Originally posted 7/28/09: Following on my success with the Super gauges intended for my TI and the two Sprint Speciale gauges, I decided tackling the last gauge for the SS was the thing to do yesterday when I spent some hours at the shop.

Outwardly the Tachometer was the middle child, not so cosmetically usable as is as the tri-gauge and not so obviously water damaged as the Speedometer. Functionally it was not much better off than the Speedometer. This is how it went:

tach front beforeI would probably have paid $40 for this on eBay and been disappointed when I received it if I didn’t know then what I know now. Needles are pointed where they belong but other than that it looks bad. At least the plastic insert is not yellowed.

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Brakes #1: Rear brake adjusters

To keep myself from getting bored I tend to work on whatever looks interesting at any given time. I didn’t have a lot of time yesterday (5/10/08) because I had to install an old Blaupunkt ‘Frankfurt’ in my wife’s 1972 Fiat 124 Sedan Special and I’m not the best at this sort of thing to begin with. It turned out the dial on the tuner was broken so I had to open up the deck and find stations using a tiny screwdriver to move the guts around then set the mechanical presets with it energized, scary. Now she has 5 choices to listen to and a DIN plug to run an Ipod into. Point of all this: I expected to have at least 2 hours to work on the SS, I ended up with 45 minutes.

When rummaging around looking for stuff to help with the stereo installation I came across the rear brake adjusters in a big zip-lock bag. I poured them out on the bench and squirted them with some WD40 I had on hand. These Girling units are the same as those found on the first few years of Austin Healey 100/3000 roadsters and probably a lot of other stuff that I don’t know about. I wipe down my work bench, get the couple of tools I will need to take them apart and clean them together and get to work.  I need two for my SS but the bag has 4 in it and I might as well do all four at once, preserving the last two for the next project.

The center shaft with the square drive is the adjuster, turn it clockwise to adjust the brake shoes out, anti-clockwise to adjust them in. The damaged threads can be seen about 6 turns down on the nearer stud.

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Modified Sprint Speciale’s part two

So many of you enjoyed the last rerun about modified SS’s that I thought I’d rerun this one.

Originally posted July 16, 2008: The last modified Sprint Speciale’s installment highlighted some fairly successful modifications, mostly done in the youth of the featured cars. This car glared at me from the same file directory I used to store the other pictures but I just couldn’t work it in. It would have been like accidentally finding reverse while speeding down the highway.

I know, you’re looking at the picture thinking ‘that’s an SS??… NO WAY’. Look closer, you know it’s true. My first impression was someone built an interpretation of something from Bubblegum Crisis or another cyberpunk Anime, but without the ability to fly.

Not an altogether unsightly proposition if it was based on a 70’s Spider -which is where the nose appears to have come from, but in my opinion an abberation as a Franken-SS unless based on a horribly smashed SS that would have been recycled if not for this.

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Modified Sprint Speciales

A rerun since I’m tropically indisposed.  Enjoy.

Originally posted July 5th, 2008: While not considered competitive on the race track in retrospect, the Sprint Speciale must none the less have been a somewhat attractive option for wealthy amateurs when it was first sold. The combination of an aerodynamic shape and powerful engine must surely have seemed like a winner if some weight could be shed and current engine tuning tricks being used by Conrero, Bosato and others could further improve the engine. This is supported by period race photographs and entry lists which document the occasional SS among the field of SV’s, SVZ’s and SZ’s.

An early SS (00045) running the 1960 Targa Florio, 00029 and 00040 also ran. 00045 went on to run in ’61 – ’64. Anyone know where 00045 is now?

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Market 200: Original Spider 10104 at Hyman

Giulietta Spider 10104 1495*08888. This car is available right now out of St. Louis Mo. at Hyman Ltd.  Hyman seems to only deal in pretty good cars and their prices are usually fairly reasonable.  This Spider is no exception at $29,500.

I’ve looked at a lot of pictures of cars photographed in this corner.  The paint has some patina, as does the trim and top, but I like this sort of thing.  Makes for a nice car that is not too nice to use.

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Market 199: Hard work done 750D Spider project

Update 3/16/10: 2 bids, $5101, no sale.  Would have been a bargain at this price.  I’ll have to ask if it’s still available.

Giulietta Spider 750d 1495*06473. This Black Plate car is on eBay right now out of Southern California. Seller is not the owner but I know him through the Alfa world and he’s an upstanding guy and not a car dealer so everything in the description should be taken at face value. Starting bid of $5000 is very reasonable considering the effort required to get a car into this condition and ready for final prep and paint. Sure, lots of little stuff needs doing -just about everything in fact, but none of it looks that bad.

This looks very good. Nose features are well defined and this is without filler. Door fit looks good, hard to say about the hood.

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Market 198: Giulia SS in Peru

Update 3/16/10: 10 bids, $24,100, apparently sold. Not a bad result for a car halfway around the world from most people who would be interested in it. Any takers here?  Drop me a line.

Giulia SS 10121*380557, 00121*00518. This car is available now out of Peru on eBay. Looks like a nice original car. A lot of people I know have fears of South American cars since a lot of the time they were kept running on no budget, with whatever parts were on hand. While I wouldn’t lay out the same money for this car in an eBay auction as for one in my home town, shipping charges aside, I also wouldn’t discount it out of hand. These were never cheap and therefore never (well, probably not never) used as a truck.

Cute kid. In 20 years he’s going to find this picture and be mad the car is gone. Trim panel fit etc all looks really good. Windshield wipers are doing their own thing.

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Market 196: Nicely preserved TI in Italy

Giulietta TI 10129*220464.  This car is available right now on eBay.it.  Condition is superbly original and the color combination is spectacular.  At 11,500 Euros or about $15,500 it is at the top of the market for these cars, but I think you’ll agree it deserves it once you look carefully at the pictures.  Car is listed as being in Caltagirone -must be near Padua judging by the plates.

Great color!  Trim and hood fit is great.  Everything has a nice even patina.  Too bad it’s $2000 worth of transport away.

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Market 194: Object of desire: Giulietta TI Corsa

Giulietta TI 10129*237039.  This car has been around for sale for about a year and coincidentally (I didn’t start this as a market, but I guess it is) was just relisted on Anamera for 13,000 Euro or about $17,600 at time of writing.  Fit and finish is just right for a street/track car and it looks to be street registered.

The Giulietta TI was born when a Sprint normale engine was fitted to a Giulietta Berlina and some details changed -the addition of a tach for example.  At the 1957 Coup Des Alpes a team of 3 TI’s ran and did very well.  I like the bumper delete and single leather hood latch.

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