750 and 101 series cars 1954 – 1965
Update 3/19/09: Car received 2 bids and with the reserve not met the auction was pulled in the 11th hour.Â
Giulia Spider 101.23 AR379169, Engine AR00536*07055 (not original). The eBay auction says 1965 Normale/Veloce and it is in about that order, a Normale with a Veloce engine and trunk badge from our friends at Sports Car LA. black plate, no rust, odd color and a $9500 starting bid.
Looks like an honest Spider just how you used to find them.
The Cincinnati Art Museum is displaying a 1964 Giulia SS belonging to Richard Grant of Dayton Ohio from February 10th to June 7th. If you are in the area, stop by. I sure would!Â
“Supporting the Art Museum’s commitment to showcase art and design across multiple disciplines, classic and concept cars introduce visitors to industrial design and its place in the history of art. Starting this February, visitors can experience the curvaceous and futuristic form of the Alfa Romeo’s 1964 Giulia Sprint Speciale created by the famed Italian design studio, Bertone. A limited production car, its body panels were carefully formed and finished by hand. The styling of the Sprint Speciale, considered especially radical when first introduced, took its cues from the study of aerodynamics and the global fascination with space travel and supersonic flight prevalent during the 1950s and 1960s. “
A teaser from the Museum website.  Looks like a sublime specimen of the Sprint Speciale species.Â
I’m usually pretty good at analogies. I am thinking maybe my current situation is like flying to Italy and finding out you have to fly home to San Francisco, turn off the oven and then fly back to Italy to get on with your vacation.
Okay, what did I do that is so bad? A total rookie move so it’s a good thing I’m a rookie. I put the number three connecting rod in backward. The Engine ran with a not terminal sounding but noteworthy knock. “The engine ran???” the attentive reader will ask.
It goes something like this…
I’m not sure why but it is somehow immediately apparent that this engine runs. This was right before the steps back announced in the title began.
Continue reading “101 1300 part 14: two steps forward and, er, 10 steps back”
This friendly looking chap is Spider 1495*00002, the first of two Giulietta Spider prototypes designed by Scaglione and built by Bertone. The top two pictures of it are from the mid 1970’s when it was in the Bobcor showroom that I found on google images, not sure who’s they are but would love to hear from the photographer.
It is said that Alfa deemed the design a little too futuristic for their clientele and Bertone went back to the drawing board and 1495*00004 emerged. Can you imagine if this car made regular production? I would have called it the Spider Speciale and fitted it with a Veloce kit. Alas what could have been…
Strong personality of Scaglione shows through and ques from cousins the BAT cars, Sportiva and SS can be seen. Also evident is front trim and headlight treatments destined for a home on the Duetto.
Gripes are in no particular order. I am forced to stretch here to provide content. My camera went on a trip across Europe for 2 weeks and I have been too busy at work to get to my shop after work, and there isn’t a glut of Giuliettas on eBay right now so I’m going to do what I don’t usually do and digress from a directly Giuliettas related blog post. Here it is , my own personal list of things I encounter while using the internet that irritate me. (Why does using seem like the wrong word?). Oh, and the pictures mean nothing in relation to the text, they are just funny or good or bad shots I found on my old computer.
When I worked at Applied Materials there was a courtyard completely surrounded by the building and every year a Mallard duck would sneek in there and lay eggs in the bushes, hatch babies and provide a general sense of cuteness to the semiconductor engineering world. This scrum is 5 of 12 from 2005.
Continue reading “Gripe gripe gripe: top five internet gripes”
I’m just throwing this out there. I want to buy a Giulietta Promiscua or Weekendia station wagon. I realize not many of these were made and I realize if do find one it will be in outer Mongolia, but I want one none-the-less.   I would be willing to trade my SS up or down for one.
I found this picture somewhere on someones blog. If I saw this on a trailer headed some where when I was on the way to my best friends wedding I’d be late for the wedding. This I believe is the Colli version, the Promiscua.
Continue reading “Giulietta Promiscua or Weekendia Wagon wanted”
This Giulia Sprint Speciale is available right now in Italy and is listed on Anamera and Autoclassic. No numbers are mentioned as usual for Italian ads but we can admire it just the same. Autoclassic’s website is worth a look as they have a group of very interesting Fiat’s and other Italian jewelry on offer.
Very very classy in white with chrome accents. I think I underestimate how cool these cars look in white. This example is keeping company with some serious cars here.
It was a tough decision, but after weeks of debating, test fitting, consulting experts and looking for patterns in tea leaves I decided to go with a Weber 28/36 DCD that I got from Conrad in exchange for some valuable emergency brake components as used on cars with the big Veloce gas tank. One local expert posited that a 1300 normale with this carb and ‘decent’ cams will out perform the stock Veloce set up of 1959. We shall see. In the interest of thoroughly documenting this rebuild I plan on running this thing on a dyno to dial the carb in and try out a few cam options I have. Anyone care to donate a little dyno time to a good cause? I’ll give you endless accolades in my write ups.
As always, the teaser picture is actually the near final product. This carb looks pretty good but required $130 in new parts from my local Weber parts dealer. With the phenolic insulator block taking up about 6mm you can see the mounting nuts don’t fully engage the studs. Oh well, this is not a suspension component.
Continue reading “101 1300 rebuild part #13: Weber 28/36 DCD”
The build goes ever on. I had been resisting working on the Sprint for the last two weeks and concentrated on organizing and consolidating my parts, tools and the like. Yesterday I had a surprise few hours of freedom so I decided to run to the shop and get back on the Sprint. The first order of business was hooking up the new exhaust front section I got in the mail a few weeks ago. I used M8 x 1.25 stainless socket head cap screws with flat and lock washers I had laying around to bolt the exhaust to the manifold with an NOS copper gasket in between sourced locally. I needed help supporting the exhaust to get the bolts started but after that it was easy. The pipe is closer to the floor than I like so I will have to see if it’s a motor mount, engine mount or pipe bend problem once everything is installed.
Here’s the new pipe mounted to the manifold with the asbestos heat shield bent out of the way. The oil pressure line is very close to the header with the heat shield in between. I plan on seeing if the pressure line can be bent or turned on the banjo bolt.
Continue reading “101 1300 rebuild part #12: The devil in the ongoing details”
I mentioned I was digging through my parts organizing them, well I came across this Giulietta SS Marelli wiper motor at the same time as the heater vents. It has been patiently waiting for me to clean it up and test it. It looked pretty good and clean on the outside but you know what they say about appearances so I decided to have a quick peek inside of it. I’ve never gotten into an electric motor besides a Bosch 105 starter that I took apart after it burned up from a solenoid stuck on. Imagining this wiper motor is only used on Giulietta SS’s and Ferrari 250 Lusso’s I went slow and was gentle with the tools.
This is the before shot. I had been messing around with an old Weber so I had some fresh carb cleaner handy to clean the goo off the outside.