Category: Project cars

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Market 38: 1959 Giulietta Sprint Project 20107

Update 2/2/13:  Bid to $18,100 with the reserve not met.  I’m torn here.  $18,100 is not a lot for a complete project car that is ready for a light skim, paint, trim/mechanical refresh and assembly -the body had to be done, but ball-parking it, you will be $10K into paint, $12K into the mechanicals and probably $20K refinishing and assembling trim/interior etc.  That’s $60K for a ’59 Normale.  I know a few guys who are deeper than that into theirs, but I don’t think I’ve seen one sell for that (have I?).

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Update 1/21/13:  Looking better without those widened wheel arches, this car is back on eBay after considerable work.  Good car for someone who wants to just paint and put together a car.

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Metal work looks great!  Buyer gets to choose the palette and level of finish.  It’s a lot of work.

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Market 362: Spider 750D 02124 project

Update 2/2/13:  Another no sale.

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Update 1/16/13:  Someone has had a little work done.  Boy -they shoulda painted the wheels bright red while they were at it.  I still think it’s a pretty reasonable start to that early Spider 750 project you’ve been contemplating.  See it on eBay now!

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Update 12/12/12:  A little better than last time.  Maybe eBay is not the right outlet for this car?

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Market 205: Giulietta Spider project in Washington

Update 1/10/13:  It runs and stops.  Hurray – let’s put it back on eBay.  Starting price is now $13,000.  It’s not a Veloce, it’s rusty (if you look closely at the underside pictures you can see finger trails where someone took a bathroom caulk approach to pushing filler into rusty areas before undercoating the thing) and unless you have a complement of attributes seldom found in one single person, it will be a confounding factor in your life.

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Serious garage action here.  rear end sits really high -stuff must be frozen under there.

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They’re hanging up the mop on this one…

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One is forced to concede improvements have occurred.

Update 2/5/12:  This car is doing another tour of eBay -in what will likely be a decaying series of ending prices.  The last result of $6901 was pretty reasonable for a scruffy, loosely assembled project with the wrong motor.

Update 1/24/12: Close maybe, but no sale.

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Market 242: frightening SS project 380956

Update 12/8/12: Still available.  Surprised?  Me neither.  This is a long uphill slog with a boulder on your back.  You would have to be a lucky guy who bought a project that came with an extra cars worth of trim etc.

Update 2/12/12: Elmar informs me this car has been relisted by Laurent with a reduced asking price of €8,900.  No less a crazy project!

French build plate.  Positive ID.  Someone somewhere will decide this is worth fixing.  Eventually.

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Market 441: Sprint Speciale 00460 at auction

Update 9/23/12: Sold for $40,750.  Wheels sold separately for $2000.  Other lots of Alfa stuff made good money too.

Giulietta Sprint Speciale 10120*00460.  This car is being auctioned next week by RM’s Auctions America.  This car appeared on the Alfa BB a few years back and a bit of information can be found there, including that it is rumored to have been the NY Auto Show car.  I haven’t seen any trim for it or anything but I suppose what’s mentioned on the BB is included.  It’s noteworthy that it has very very rare period alloy wheels.  Was probably a $20K car when it was offered on the BB… who knows now.

Nice straight shell.  Door fit is wonky, but its guides are undoubtedly in a box somewhere.  Sweet wheels, have them inspected for cracks.  I don’t think I’ve seen a set of these for sale since I’ve been keeping this blog.  I’m sure someone will be tempted to buy this, take the wheels and a few choice bits for their project then send it on down the road…

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Market 439: Spider Veloce 750F 06380 w/ hardtop

Giulietta Spider Veloce 750F 1495*06380.  This car is available out of Connecticut on eBay.  Engine is not original and it needs a lot of help in all the usual areas, except it doesn’t appear to be too rusty.  Presence of original Pininfarina hardtop is unusual and will add a few thousand bucks to the result.

So far so goo.  Some bits are missing but they are included.  Headlights look like the original Carello units

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Heater part 3: Air intake, front, with motor 1493.54.708

The car I’m working on will eventually retire to a leisurely life in Washington -a state well known for its rainfall.  As such, I decided a good forced air system to heat the cabin and defog the windscreen was a good idea.  I have the original fan impeller mounted on a modern motor in my Sprint and it works okay -you can feel a little moving air, but it’s not very impressive (admittedly most of my ducting is leaky original BS or ill-fitting replacement BS, so maybe an unfair test).  Anyway, I was perusing the McMaster catalog when I found a 4″, 12 volt all-in-one in-line blower fan.

Applications: Sprint and sprint Veloce.

Failure mode: electric motor failure.

Current state of parts: repair original or find something to adapt in place of the original.

This is where the Air intake plenum lives.  It’s designed to act as a ram-air and I imagine at over about 40 mph the air forced in is moving faster than the original fan could push it in.  The rest under here looks pretty nice…

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Heater part 2: Heater valve 1493.54.709 and control cable 1488.31.723

Last installment we looked at the heat exchanger box itself, this time I’ll focus on the bits that hook it up and control the incoming hot water: the heater valve and the push/pull cable that controls the valve.  The first generation of Sprint’s had a heater valve (1483.54.711) that looked not far removed from a garden tap and you actually had to pop the hood and get out to turn on the flow of hot water to the heater core (if you didn’t realize you were going to want heat before you started out).  At some point this was deemed a little old fashioned so a cable operated valve was put to use -cousins of which can be found on Alfa’s for many years to follow.

Valve failure mode(s): hardening of rubber diverter seal, oxidation leading to through pits or breakage, loss.

Control cable failure mode(s): still/difficult operation, cable breakage/cut leading to too short, loss.

The current state of the parts supply has:

1493.54.709 with new diaphragm seal installed.  Like all rubber things, it just got hard and cracked after 50+ years.  The inner plateau seals against the port in the valve body, keeping the water out of the core when not wanted, the outer ring seals to the body to keep it from leaking when it’s open.

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Market 291: Driver Giulia SS in Texas

Update 7/16/12: This car has appeared for sale on eBay in Europe out of Southern California from a Zero feedback seller. Scam? Hmmm.

Update 3/17/11: 75 bids resulted in $62,750.  It’s no joke, game on for SS values!

Update 3/14/11: Bidding has reached  $40,000 and reserve is met with 2 days to go.  The suspense begins!

Giulia SS 10121*381379. This car is on eBay right now out of Texas.  Bidding is at just shy of $30,000 with 4 days left as I write.  This car is truly in ‘how you used to find them’ condition and frankly may be as much as $80,000 away from being a top money car, but for a capable DIY restorer that restoration number could get down to $40,000.  Why do I mention this?  See yesterdays post, which the seller references in their write up, a Giulietta SS sold for $140,000 at the Amelia Island auction.  This is a great place to start, but it still has to be reduced to nuts, bolts and bare metal and built back out to get in the league that car is in.  Then it has to find a buyer… Or it could be let alone, touched up, enjoyed and entered in the preservation class some day.

Looks great from this distance, through the lens of a camera after being hosed down.  Note dent above headlight.  Antennae has to go to.

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