Author: hamilton.mm

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Market #25: Bertone Scaglione orphan NSU Sport Prinz

Update 6/27/08.  Seller decided to keep the car.  Bravo!  Unfortunately he couldn’t actually end the auction in time due to the need to cancel bids and there is a time window that it all has to be done in.  Should be interesting for him to dig out of.  Sale price was $5100 after a few cancelled bids, who knows where it would have gone if the auction had played out.

NSU type 41 Sport Prinz Nr. 4109649. This car is available right now on eBay out of Sacramento. I know what you are thinking, why am I writing about a German mid-sized microcar? Turns out this little car is a second cousin of the Giulietta Sprint and first cousin of the Sprint Speciale. It also turns out I’ve owned an NSU Prinz I and have owned a group of NSU motorcycles, mopeds and scooters. Last, turns out I was on the California Melee the year this car was dragged against its will to Red Bluff resulting in the destruction of its original low-mileage engine.

Handsome little guy whose sporting look would probably be improved by removing part or all of the extensive front bumper, though it may upset the steering geometry to lose all that weight up there. Bumper is reminiscent of an SS front bumper. I’d be surprised if the paint color wasn’t the very same red as my 59 Sprint.

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Market #24: One-off? Pininfarina/Coune? Spider Coupe

Update 6/26/08: Yet a second comment, this one from someone who knows Mr. Coune and asked him if he made this car.  Mr. Coune says this is not his work.  I am not surprised because I don’t think the work on this car is up to the standard that can be seen on his MGB based coupe or Volvo Amazon convertibles.  Does anyone have any information on this car?  Please leave a comment or email me at sprints@giuliettas.com so the mystery can be solved. 

Update 6/23/08: Received a comment from someone familiar with Coune who says this car is not his work.  Whether the Coune connection was a pure fabrication on the part of the seller or a reiteration of a claim by someone else is somewhat immaterial in my opinion.  Regardless of who made it and under what circumstances it is more odd than beautiful and will have difficulty finding a new home at a restored Giulia Spider price.  If anyone knows more about this car please comment or send me an email at sprints@giuliettas.com. 

Original post: Another foray into international eBay, this time French,  turned up this odd one-off coupe based on Pininfarinas 101 Giulietta Spider.  Asking price is 17,500 Euro’s, about $27,000.  Sellers description is “ALFA ROMEO Giulietta Spider 1960 Coachbuilder Jacques Coune or factory ????? I have been told 3 are existing.  Car is running and is all original .Body generally sound . Needs restoration . Engine is original but gearbox is not (5 speed) French documents.”

Not a bad looking car combining a late-60’s Italian budget coupe sort of Kamm tail rear with the always pleasing Giulietta Spider.  I’m not really a convertible guy, having suffered sunburned nose after sunburned nose over the two years when an Austin Healey Frog/Bug-eye Sprite was my daily hack, but have often thought about how nice it would be to have a coupe version of some of the attractive convertibles I’ve tried to convince myself I could live with.  Harrington did it successfully (from a styling standpoint) for some of the British main-stays like the TR4 and Alpine so I guess it’s no surprise someone made a coupe out of a Pininfarina Giulietta Spider, despite the existence of the Bertone Sprint coupe.  I guess this is the point where I admit to having fantasized about welding a GTV roof on a Duetto, good thing either of those cars is too expensive to consider doing something like that to. 

Pretty much looks like your standard 101 1600 Spider wearing an after-market hard top from this angle.  Might be an earlier 1300 Spider with the 1600 ‘scoop’ hood.

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Market 21: California Black plate ‘Interim’ Giulietta Sprint

Update June 17, 2008.  Sold! The auction for this car ended today at $12,100. I don’t really understand this result unless here were major undisclosed problems and the primary bidders found out about them. This car seemed like a great deal compared to either the project that was the subject of this post or the incorrect and possibly sketchy subject of this post. Of course my theory that the market is somewhat flooded with Sprints may have been proven to have merit by this auction. If the sale sticks I have a feeling this car was very well bought. If only I had the cash I would gladly have welcomed this car into my shop.

Giulietta Sprint 10102 1493*20747, engine # 1315*011118. According to Fusi a 1959 year model based on the engine number. In classic car circles the world over, whether you’re talking about Alfa’s or Mopar’s in German or Japanese , the description ‘California Black plate car’ evokes a certain quality of preservation. This car is the very definition of what is meant by ‘California Black plate car’. Wearing it’s original issue black and yellow plates, no rust, low miles (79,884) and drivable with some deferred maintenance to tackle. This car is the twin of my 1959 Sprint and several other local cars I know about.

If you want to get into a true black plate Sprint, this is a good one to buy. I don’t know how many more Sprints like this will come out of California garages but it has to be few indeed.

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Like a casual family picture, all that is missing is a Golden Retriever laying in the shade at the front of the car. Car looks good… straight with shiny chrome bumper and grills, good panel gaps and reasonably shiny paint. “Appears to be rust free.”

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Market #23: Giulietta Sprint 750 B project

Giulietta Sprint 750 B 1493-03822, Engine 1315-03887.  Available here on Italian eBay is this early project Sprint.  Seller also has a Lancia Appia Zagato  project which, if you’ve never seen one, is worth taking a look at. 

I love a good project.  The enjoyment of seeing a car like this and imagining it eventually being transported to a garage where it is pains-takingly brought back to life is hard to explain to someone who doesn’t care much for old cars or working on them.  This looks like a better starting point than the crushed Confortevole I wrote about earlier, but that car had three times the upside this car has.  One would have to buy carefully to have this car make sense as a full restoration candidate, a thoughtful approach to this car may be a slow rolling restoration.  That said if this was in my neighborhood I’d be borrowing a trailer right now rather than writing about it.

Small headlights and simple grill surrounds are the most obvious differences between 750 and 101 bodied cars.  I bet that round sticker on the windshield is from some garage that doesn’t exist anymore.    Note ambiguous rusty patch behind the front wheel.

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750 Veloce Intake Parts on eBay, Weber 40DCO3

I am thinking about my 1958 Sprint Veloce’s future engine rebuild to original when I look for Veloce engine parts on eBay. All I have from the original Engine is the block with matching crank bearing caps and front cover. Having the original engine is a necessity if the car is ever going to be restored to absolute top dollar status but so is having all of the correct parts bolted to the engine. If you look at how much you can spend to get all these parts together you begin to see one of the reasons besides rarity that correct Veloces are so much more expensive than Normales.

The intake set-up on a 750 Veloce consists of a sand cast Aluminum intake manifold with a separate tapered water pipe, a pair of sand-cast Weber 40 DCO3 carburetors, a two piece Aluminum intake plenum and a firewall mounted sheet metal air filter canister fed from an intake horn built into the body on the drivers side front grill.

If you are restoring a 750 Veloce and you don’t have a pair of Weber 40DCO3’s, your wallet is in for a shock.

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Resting Sprints picture show

I’ve walked by these cars a few times, not really giving them a second glance. I suppose they are better preserved than a lot of others hiding in backyard hedges beside tilted fences in wetter climates but it still smarts a little to see these sad though save-able cars.

I’ve heard stories of running original Sprints robbed of mechanical parts to restore Spiders then cut up for disposal. It makes me wonder how many are left out there. I bet a third of the Sprints made still exist physically as cars but less than a third of those run. As the information age appropriates more of the world and makes it available perhaps the counts in registers and the like will become more accurate.

Back of a 101 Sprint showing heavy patina.

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Details #1: IPRA Torino Heater box markings

If you are restoring a Giulietta Sprint Speciale or Spider (or possibly many other late 50’s or early 60’s Italian cars Fiat, Ferrari, Maserati, Lancia etc among them) to as-new condition and are obsessed (I mean really obsessed) with originality, then you may have given thought to reproducing factory markings. These cars were made by hand then assembled by hand from parts that were made by hand. Hand written grease pencil notes on the backs of upholstery cards and on interior surfaces, hand stamped serial numbers, hand applied decals and rubber stamps all characterize these cars and the circumstances under which they were made. Erasing, preserving or recreating these markings during a restoration is a matter of personal choice. I don’t know if points are awarded or taken away during judging at serious concours events but if the spirit of the competition is to recreate the ‘new’ car then it seems to me these markings should be present.

The first item in my ‘Original Details’ section is this heaterbox, as removed from a very original Giulietta Sprint Speciale.

‘E’ in a box with an arrow pointing up. Water Entrata? Continue reading “Details #1: IPRA Torino Heater box markings”

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Market #19: Another Italian Ebay 101 Giulietta Sprint Veloce

As if in response to my declaration in Special Sprints #11 that good 101 Sprint Veloce’s seem to be going for $55,000 this 1960 Sprint Veloce appears on Italian eBay with a 36,000 Euro price tag, about $56,000.

The color of this car is Tornado Blue, very rare on these early cars. As explained in Special Sprints #9, Italian eBay is different from eBay USA in that car listings are more like the classifieds found in classic car magazines. You get a brief description of the car, some low resolution pictures and an email and phone number to use to contact the seller.

Looks like an honest enough car. Not sure I’d keep the sail out front. Grills, headlight rings and all the other trim look good.

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Market #18: Stunning silver Giulietta Sprint Speciale

This 1961 Giulietta Sprint Speciale is listed for sale on several European classic car classified websites and is described as having been restored in Denmark in about 1989 and currently licensed there. Asking price is 36,000 Euro’s, about $55,000 at the time of writing. If this car is as good as it looks this is probably a good deal, but from California, the requisite journey to inspect the car and then the shipping to get it home would add as much as $10,000 to the purchase price.

Restored SS’s are seldom seen in silver. Most of these cars seem to get returned to their original color and I don’t think silver was on the stock palette, though with Alfa you could probably call them up and get whatever you wanted for a price. Chrome bright-work up front blends in and is almost lost in the beautifully finished paint. This is the effect I enjoy so much on the 007 DB5 Aston. It doesn’t scream ‘look at me’ like a shiny red car with a chrome grill, it doesn’t have to. You can’t help but look.

Very classy looking car from this angle. Bodywork is arrow straight and fussy, hard to make right front trim all fits together perfectly.

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Market #17: a trio of sold 101 Veloces

These three Sprint Veloces sold just before I started this blog. It is my goal to track as many as possible of the sales of Speciales and Veloces so that in the years to come trends may be detected besides the simple upward trend that these cars seem to be enjoying.

1961 Giulietta Sprint Veloce Tipo 10106 AR*E159111, engine 00106*02376. An absolutely stunning example sensibly restored with a perfectly complementary mix of original and new parts. This car sold in April. Asking price was $57,500. This car sold very quickly which tells me that it probably sold for the asking price and the buyer probably had been looking for a very high quality Sprint Veloce. A visit to Fantasy Junctions sold cars page to see this car is worthwhile, the description is thorough and there are 54 high quality pictures to enjoy.

Straight, clean and shiny. Good panel and trim fit. Bumper looks slightly higher on drivers side, but it may just be an illusion from shadows. This car looks good no matter how close you get.

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