The sincerest form of flattery

I wasn’t expecting this when Alex in Virginia sent me a link.  I look at kit cars occasionally on eBay to check out the latest in Porsche Laser 917’s and the like, but not often enough to catch all the weirdness that passes through -including this: an Alfa Giulietta Spider treatment kit on a Miata!  I’ve seen lots of Porsche 356 kits, Austin Healey 3000 kits and others, but never Giulietta kit -not that this looks a whole lot like a Giulietta, but you get my meaning.

The quality of the finish isn’t too bad for this sort of thing, and being a Miata, it probably performs admirably.  Knock-offs look like something from the SpyHunter video game.  Center grill looks like a genuine Alfa part.

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Market 358: Early Spider 00647, slightly modified

Update 1/4/12:  Wow, $6,412!!

Giulietta Spider 750D 1495*00647.  This odd-ball home-brew special is on eBay right now out of Sacramento.  I am going to assume this is all reversible, and only the front end changes will present any challenge not part of routine rust repair.  Title of the auction says ‘Veloce’ but 00647 is not listed as such in d’Amico & Tabucchi.  If the engine is matching numbers to the body -and I believe it is based on the fuel line configuration- this is actually  a pretty good first step toward early Spider ownership in project form.  Me?  I’d vacuum out the leaves and roll as-is to Pebble Beach -you’d turn more heads in this than an 8C 2900.  If you had this car and the Market 216 car, you’d corner a dubious market.

Roof gutter definitely recalls the VW bug.  Too bad they didn’t have access to a Sprint roof to work with -might have been more successful.  Firewall is early Spider 750D leading me to believe more strongly that the vin is correct.  Headlight openings are likely 70’s Alfa Spider sections.  Engine looks remarkably complete and original.

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Modified Sprint Speciale's 3: another Zat car??

Elmar sent me this picture yesterday, describing it as ‘pimped’.  It reminded me that I’ve been owing the ‘Modified SS’s’ post series an update for a while.  This one is dedicated to the modern era super sports type  mod’s that probably started with the Zat SS (381238 was the basis) that eventually sold through RM in 2008 for just under $50K.  I can’t verify the auction description below -but it states that 4 Zat SS’s were made and two survive.
This car has been to the ‘Shelby Cobra 427′ school of design: very wide wheels, chunky bulbous corners and a big ol’ hood scoop.  Would be funny if it was stock Alfa powered.  I suspect it is an SS body on a tube frame. Continue reading “Modified Sprint Speciale's 3: another Zat car??”

Identification numbers Part 1: Sprint Autotelaio number

Update 10/25/11: Time marches on.  I read these old posts and find myself in the interesting position of not remembering what I have written so it’s fresh -like seeing yourself from an others perspective.  Not many times in life when you can look at yourself this way.  I’m glad I started this madness.  Enjoy, and as Giulietta owners like to say -keep the rev’s up!

Update 11/10/09: Below was first posted on 6/26/08. I carry on with the projects and other pursuits. A new post is almost done. There are some Spiders (as usual) on eBay that deserve a quick mention but again, time has been precious.
Thanks for stopping by and today 5 boxes with T-shirts went out to Tom who paid first, Chris in UK, Dirk in Germany, Peter in Portland and Marco in Illinois. Send me a paypal or check and I’ll get yours in the mail too,
Update 2: Looking over all the cars I have numbers for it looks more likely that 101.02 cars have the new 001.02 engines while 101.05 cars have the 1315* series engines that are modified to accept the 101 engine series head.
Update 1: 101.02 versus 101.05 is a market difference. I read in a reputable source that 101.05 was the model number for US Market Sprints.
If you start looking carefully at the parts on your Giulietta Sprint, Sprint Veloce or Sprint Speciale you will notice there are a lot of numbers stamped, cast, engraved or written with grease pencil in Italian long-hand. These numbers tell you the year, model, and on early cars can match engine number to VIN number. The more subtle markings can shed a little light on how these cars were assembled and can be of great assistance when trying to identify what is correct for your car. I am going to focus on the vehicle identification numbers of Sprint and Sprint Veloce’s in this post and will look at the Engine numbers, Bertone numbers and Sprint Speciale specific numbers separately later.
Tipo or type and series are the fundamental identifiers. Tipo is essentially the model name and series is the model number, which changed over time and for different markets. The first picture is the build plate for one of my cars. It is a Tipo: Giulietta Sprint, Series 101.05. It doesn’t actually say Sprint on the build plate, it’s sort of implied by the car itself that it is a Sprint.
Several identifying numbers can be seen in this picture. On the build plate are the Series, Autotelaio (VIN) and Motore (Engine) numbers. Above the plate, stamped in the body is the number Bertone used to identify the car during fabrication and assembly. The Autotelaio is also stamped on the firewall just below the bundle of wires that can be seen in this picture.
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Market 195: Sprint in Portugal

Update 9/22/11:In Portugal, with Vent window -this Sprint is back on eBay.
I think I would take fresh pictures rather than reuse these close to 2 year olds…
Update 7/1/10: No sale last time I suppose. Now on eBay again… better $20K?  Doubtful.
Update 6/24/10: Auction ended at $22,850, reserve met.  Not such a bad deal when you consider it wouldn’t wouldn’t be too hard to turn it into a nice car with a nearly unique feature in the vent window.
Update 6/10/10: This car has made its way to ebay and the seller has listed the vin number -1493*08477, so I now have another to add to the register.  Condition is described as ‘restored to like new’ but it’s not… incorrect driver restoration is more like it.  The kind of car that gets bid up to just under $20K.  Vent window is still a neat thing though.
Original post March 3, 2010: Giulietta Sprint. I found this car on a Japanese classic car site and it’s available out of Portugal for just under $33,000.  A Portugese car on a Japanese website makes perfect sense really -the Japanese are highly refined in their car collecting and own a disproportionate number of interesting Italian cars, many Giuliettas among them.  Why not market directly to the money?
Looking back over the last few weeks I’ve been trending toward more international market entries (among the posts about welding on the SS).  What’s up you ask?  Well, there aren’t many Giuliettas for sale in the US right now.  Must be the weather!
The body and paint on this car is really pretty nice, panels fit well, trim embellishes as intended, not much to complain about to be seen.  A careful viewer of the above picture will note a rare feature.
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Period Bay Area 1600 Spider pictures

Jeffrey Writes that he bought this 1964 Spider 1600 for $3100 at Rezzaghi Motors in San Francisco while a graduate student.  A trip around the block in a friends Spider instigated the purchase – must have seemed like a race car compared to the Renault Dauphine he had at the time!  License plate was a California black plate MXR 778.  Is this car still around somewhere?  Drop me a line if you know of its where-abouts sprints@giuliettas.com.  Thank You for sharing these Jeffrey!
This was taken around the time the Marin Civic Center was completed.  Car looks fabulous!
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1960's Sprint Speciale photographs in Germany

John sent me this note along with these great scans of period slides:

“These were taken by my father, John E. Grabowski, during his first tour of duty in Germany as a young officer in the U.S. Army. Timeframe would have been somewhere between 1965 and 1968 I believe. He was stationed in Manheim at the time. I scanned these from my late father’s old color slides. The only thing I know is that the Alfa belonged to a friend of my father’s, and that one of my father’s hobbies was photography (and he always loved sports cars).”


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Market 293: '61 Spider Veloce Ex-Carrera Panamerica

Giulietta Spider Veloce 10107*170380. This car is on eBay right now and has been featured on Bringatrailer.  Eduardo (seller) sent me a bunch of pictures you can see if you follow the vin link.  Engine is a later 2 liter and a lot of modifications have been done that make it ineligible for most vintage race series, but with a few creature comforts added this would make a great event car.  Email me of you can’t extract the sellers info from the above links.
Looks like it should for a rally/race car.  Hood is a later Giulia 1600 item, no doubt used to help clear the 2 liter.  The silver lines seen through the grills are the edges of a big radiator.
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