Market #28: Rough Giulia 1600 Sprint project

Reserve not Met.  Auction ended at $3300 on 7/6/08.  This ending price is probably the parts value of the car.  I would guess the reserve was $3500 or $4000.  Car has been relisted and I’m not sure but I think there are additional photos.

Giulia Sprint 1600 10112*356469. Yet another project Sprint from the eBay seller out of Newport Beach. Whoever bought the subject of Market #11 might consider this car as a co-project to make two into one from with that car. With values where they are today a Sprint like this is in a much better position for survival than it has ever been. That said, I think this car is a better value as a source of parts than as a restoration project, though the optimist in me would love to see it restored.

The body is for the most part straight, with the usual decent panel gaps and trim fit. It has rust issues, probably not terminal but challenging. Replaced rear drivers corner could hide major headaches, but with cut out and weld in rust repairs to do anyway it would probably fade to background noise by the time you got to it.

Even in near death the Sprint is beautiful. Drivers side headlight is neat period Marchal unit. Headlight rings mismatch. Front bumber in picture is not original.

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Market #27: Austrian Giulia SS project

Looking to out do me and have an even worse SS starting point? Look no further. 10,000 Euros ‘Buy it now’ and this could be yours. Based on the pictures it is a 10121*38XXXX, Giulia SS. Seemingly clean SS’s tend to hide rust very well, not so this car, it is clearly out of the closet.
When I and the internet were young I used to play a game where I used translation software to translate phrases back and forth from English to other languages. The results were often startlingly funny. Obviously translation software hasn’t improved much. The translated eBay text reads: “For sale is a rare Alfa Romeo Giulia SS, 1.6 petrol, with original Italian papers, restaurations object, partially disassembled and prepared to restore! Rollfähig vehicle engines and gearboxes are expanded, Interior Rooms with almost complete. Foreign facilities without Stosstangen and without barbecue. Inquiries under 0043 676 6500 954 Enjoy bidding 3, 2, 1, deins …… NO and NO GUARANTEE WARRANTY” Phew, I was worried about the barbecue…
Car doesn’t actually look too bad in this picture. Headlight openings, grill opening, hood alignment and all look right, bumper mounts are sticking out into space. I like the blue lower lip paint scheme, like a 4 year old after a blue popsicle.

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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 #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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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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Market #11 1965 Sprint 1300 project

Sold! This car ended on 5/20/08 for $5300. A decent buy for parts if nothing else. I imagine the buyer and seller will both be pleased. I am wondering if the success of this sellers last 2 Sprint projects is bringing more cars out of hiding, and if the market has the capacity to digest any more Sprints at these strong prices. I guess we will see since there has been a seeming steady stream of them the last two months.

Giulietta Sprint 101 10102*385744, engines 00102*33631 and 00536*17120. A third project Sprint from the eBay seller out of Newport Beach, though not nearly as nice as the prior two. Body has some very serious though not terminal rust and everything needs rebuilding, which detracts significantly, but the car appears to be complete and unhit which is good. According to Fusi, the two engines that come with the car are a 1600 from a 67 Giulia Sprint GT that is installed, and an 00102 1300 from a 1962 Giulietta Sprint or Spider. Since the 1300 is not the original engine for the car I would stick with the 1600. If it can’t be original, it might as well be fun.

Car doesn’t look too bad in this picture. Grills, bumper and light rings all appear to be fine. There is probably $1500 – $2000 worth of value in those parts alone. I am not sure if the sill plates are original.

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Market #10: Shiny red 10102 Sprint ‘Driver’

Sold! This car ended on eBay at $12,301.57 on 5/17/08. I said it wouldn’t be a bad deal for less than $12K, hopefully I am right. Another curious aspect is there were no questions answered and added during the auction. If I were bidding I would have asked a lot of questions. Compare this car to Special Sprints #3 and you get a sense of what Giulietta buyers want. As always, we’ll see if the auction sale is final.

Giulietta Sprint ‘Normale’ 10105 1493*20428. Seller lists the car as a 1961, but Fusi says it falls in the 1959 101 Sprint number range. There is actually no real information in the sellers description other than paint and interior were ‘done to driver standard’ and most chrome work was recently done. These are items whose quality can vary wildly, so I would want someone to look at the car in person for me. The information in the eBay ad is so scant I would have to send an email with a tiresome list of questions if I was interested in buying.

The condition of this car is very interesting. It looks great at first flush, and someone who is new to these cars would be wowed by all the shiny stuff, but if you know how these cars are supposed to be that wowing slowly gives way to uncertainty. I am going to critique this car, comparing it with originality, but one has to remember that there were about 35 years in this cars life when any sort of non-mechanical parts were simply unobtainable for most people and this car looks to have been put together from what was on hand during this period. If it wasn’t for this approach, this car probably would have been scrapped a long time ago

Nice looking car for the right price. Wheels are later 105 Giulia Sedan or GT items. I wonder if the hub caps had to be modified to fit? I think the marker lights are Fiat 500 items.

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Market 9: Original 1958 750 B barn find

Sprint ‘Normale’ 750B 1493*06329, engine 1315*05724.Sold on eBay 3/31/08 for $26,600. A nicer start for a total restoration couldn’t be found, but I don’t know if I could bring myself to erase the original patina of this machine, and it may not make any financial sense. Engine is loosely assembled to add to the pictures appeal. Mileage is a claimed 108K at which point it blew its head-gasket, in 1971. I would estimate $10,000 or more to bring this car up to a safe, reliable operating standard, and maybe another $2000 to get the interior in shape. Seller, operating out of Newport Beach California, is known for bringing well presented barn-find Alfa’s to eBay and this is in my opinion his finest offering to date.

The 750 Sprints were all hand made, with body panels hammered out on wood bucks and welded together. When you scrutinize these cars you see some very fine detail work beside some very rough welding, totally normal given the manufacturing circumstances. Any repairs to the body are hammer and dolly, or cut, shape and weld. The car is a true uni-body so there are no removable panels and this adds to the expense of restoration. Fortunately this car needs none of that.

rightfrontlow

Clean, straight, original. This car sits like a car that was driven to this spot. Grills look great as do side spears and window surround trim. The nickname ‘eyebrow’ car comes from the two simple trims surrounding he openings on either side of the grill.

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Market #8: 1959 Interim 750 Sprint barn find

Sold! This car ended on 5/14/08 at $15,100. This is more than I expected, but not much, and I was not thinking of the current dollar weakness when I said $12,000. I expect this will be a sale that finalizes and the new owner will be very happy with their purchase. A couple of good showings for Sprints the last couple of months has me thinking I finally bought a car (or three) at the right time. I wonder what additional money would have been spent on this car if the original engine were included? Another win-win auction.

Sprint ‘Normale’ 750B 1493*08260, engine AR00112*01160. Another fantastic barn-find from the eBay seller out of Newport Beach area. This car is one of the Interim Sprints which were made from 1958 through 1960 and in a few cases beyond. The 750B and Tipo 10102 Sprints were made side by side with essentially whatever parts were on hand the day of the build. I suspect Bertone was told by Alfa to use up stock of old parts where they could. My 1959 Sprint is very similar to this car in most respects though it is a 10102 with a 1493 body number. The Fusi book of production Alfa’s lists the 59 750B’s starting with 07922 and ending with 10301. The 10102’s start with 20001 and end with 21487. I think that adds up to about 3500 examples made that year including Sprint Veloces, which were pulled at random from among the two series and labeled with an E between the Tipo prefix and number.

Stance looks right, body is straight as is the front brightwork. Too bad every mechanical part on a car like this will need attention before it can see the road.

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