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Market #51: 1964 Sprint rally/race car

Our friends over at bring a trailer have this car on offer from a collection in Southern California.  If it’s a 1964 it’s probably a Giulia 1600 Sprint.  The car is reported to have been a French market car which means it probably had a few oddities like a glass brake fluid bottle when it was new.  Alfa and Renault had a deal worked out that reduced the import tax on Alfa’s and allowed Alfa to make Dauphines and R4’s in Italy.  I’ll explore this relationship in a later post. 

This car looks like a pretty straight, lightly modified, used but not abused car that would clean up nicely and make a great driver.  Asking price is $30,000 which seems optimistic, but a trip to Orange County may find this car to be better than it appears and it probably has excellent provenance from its time on the track.

The absence of the egg-crate grills on this car makes it look tough.  I’d put some Cibie Oscars on either side of the grill heart.  All the visible trim and shut lines look good.  I like the orangy-red and would look forward to cleaning and polishing this car if I bought it.

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2008 Andrew Watry Berlina Tour

Andrew Watry, keeper of the Giulietta Berlina, Giulia Sedan and Berlina registers, began putting together a Fall Berlina tour a few years back to encourage local Alfa Berlina owners to hit the backroads and exercise their often overlooked Alfa Sedans.  Well, with appreciation for Alfa sedans at an all time high (especially for the Giulia TI and Super) and Andrew welcoming all comers so long as they’re driving an appropriately interesting or old car, the event has grown.

Stopped for a photo op on Redwood road. 

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giuliettas dot com turns 100!

147 days ago I started this Giuliettas.com blog.  Why?  I guess there was no real central location for auction news (with selling price and pictures), historical musings and small personal mechanical struggles with Giuliettas.  No one-stop-shop if you will.  Now that I have been at it a while I have to ask myself: What have I done?  I’ve created a small, usually quiet readership who send me a nudge whenever a few days goes by and I haven’t put up a new post.  I appreciate the comments, no matter how brief or off topic and market alert emails (Paul and Ian come first to mind) they keep me going when I wonder what the point is and help a lot when I don’t have the time to search on my own for cars.  I thought this blog would just be a lunchtime meditiation to help me avoid all of the horrible Silicon Valley California fast food lunch invites and fill gaps between work projects.  It has done these and much more, I’ve even made some friends along the way. 

SS going fast in the dirt back when the world was a simpler place to live.

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Market #50: Al Leake’s 57 Monoposto Spider race car

Update 2/11/09: This car just showed up on Anamera advertising that it will be auctioned by RM.  They are looking for $125,000.

95a9ec9425How much mark up does a detailing add?  Someone is going to find out!

213965f39dThis is one sweet ride.  Knowing me, if it were mine I’d commute in it.

Ex-Al Leake 1957 Giulietta Spider ‘Monoposto’ 1495*02646, Engine 00106*00512. This is a pretty serious purpose-built race car and it is available right now from Fantasy Junction. Click on the link if for no other reason than to look at the 50 or so pictures provided. No price is stated but Sophia, his most often raced Giulietta Spider made about $75,000 on eBay last winter so you can bet that this car will be at least that much.

Al Leake along with some other guys including H.B. Luginbuhl had an SCCA race team that started in the late 60’s/early 70’s called Rubber Chicken racing. Al continued to race and build Alfa’s for many years until he lost a battle with cancer earlier this year. A little of his history and cars can be read here on the Alfa BB. I saw Al race a few times at Sears Point and Laguna Seca and I can personally attest that he was very very fast and that this car is capable of winning against seemingly faster and more nimble cars if well driven.

It’s refreshing to see a modern era vintage race car that is both fiercely competitive and tastefully presented. I like the contrasting white wheels and cut down windscreen. A lot of Giulietta Spider race cars lose the under door trims, eyebrow trims and even grill heart. If you are fast this eight pounds of jewelry isn’t going to keep you from winning.

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Market #48: 2L 57 Sprint revisited

Sold!  $23,102 is the winning bid after 16 bids.  I think this is the best price this car has acheived yet.  Will its reign of terror end or will we be seeing it again on eBay?  Time will tell.

Giulietta Sprint 750B 1493*04891 with 105 2 liter engine ‘AbNormale‘.  This car has been for sale since before I bought my first Sprint a couple of years ago and can presently be found on eBay.  I featured this car and another by the same seller in Market 26 and it doesn’t look like much has changed with this car.

You have to admit this car photographs well.  It’s straight, the trim is all present and it has a slightly agressive look to the way it sits.  Smaller 6 inch headlights are neat feature of these early Sprints.

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Market #47: Restored Austrian Giulia SS

This 1964 Giulia SS is available here and here out of Austria.  I seem to remeber this car from somewhere else, but haven’t had time to go through my files to see.  No price is listed on Anamera and price is listed as inquire on the sellers website so it’s a safe bet they want top dollar for the car, maybe 50K Euro’s?

Very nice backdrop for a photo set.  Greens in the background really bring out the lustrous red body.  I don’t see anything wrong here.  That’s quite a billboard they put out front.

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Market #46: Sprint project in CT with 00121 Veloce engine

Update 9/17/08.  Reserve not met at $5101 with 35 bids.  I made a pretty good estimate of the closing price this time and would have won big if this was ‘The Price is Right’.  I think the seller should take this amount.  This car needs a lot of expensive work and even though it has the later Veloce engine it will only in the end ever be an ‘Abnormale’ and not worth as much as a genuine unmolested matching-number example, which for these Normale 101’s is probably going to be south of $20,000 for a long time except for really choice examples.  Look for the string of disappointing follow up auctions…

Giulietta Sprint Normale 10105 1493*21372, Engine AR 00121*01522 (not original).  This 1959 Sprint is available now on eBay with a low starting bid.  Engine is a 1600 101 Veloce unit out of either a Spider Veloce or Sprint Speciale.  Connecticut is in the part of the country you normally associate with rusty cars but this car looks to be as free of rot as described.  I guess 34 years in dry storage paid off.

From this angle it doesn’t so bad other than a few scrapes and bumps.  Most trim is present and jacking points look good.

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Market #45: Straight-forward Giulia Spider Normale project

Update:  Sold!  Car closed with 28 bids, the high of which was $12,205.  A little higher than I thought it would go for, but given how original everything on the car is I am not really surprised. 

1962 Giulia Spider 101.03 AR370257, Engine 00102*30583.   On eBay now! Seller claims the car is a 1963 Giulietta 1300 Spider Normale, though according to the numbers Fusi indicates it’s a 1962 Giulia Spider.  Engine listed is a 1300 from a 1961 Sprint or Spider.  This car is firmly in the gray area known as interim cars.  It has the large Giulia type tail lights, earlier Giulietta gauges and no fake hood vent.  My knowledge of Spiders is limited so if any of you cares to chime in with a comment, please do.

The nose of this car is very nice, no real body work is required to make it straight.  Giulia’s usually have the fake vent on the hood, maybe this isn’t the original hood, or maybe the first year Giulias didn’t have the fake vent.

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Sprint Veloce and Speciale oversized gas tank on eBay

Update:  Sold for opening bid of $299.  pretty good deal if you ask me!

Available here is a Giulietta Sprint Veloce, Sprint Speciale, and Sprint Zagato 84 liter (22.2 Gallon) gas tank part number 1365.85.722.  These gas tanks are a standard fitment racing item providing extra fuel capacity.  By comparison, standard Sprint (and Spider/Spider Veloce) gas tanks are 56 liters (14.8 gallons).  I haven’t seen many of these offered for sale in the years I’ve been keeping track of Alfa 750/101 series parts, so this is one of those parts that you should buy when you see it if you suspect you will eventually need it.  Adding one of these to your Sprint Normale requires modifications to the body and a group of other Veloce only parts and is thus no cake-walk. 

Tank looks very straight and clean on the outside.  The breather pipe, seen here running back to the filler neck requires a ridge in the trunk floor, making fitment in a Sprint Normale a challenge.

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Market #43: Project Sprint on SF Bay Area Craigslist

Giulietta Sprint 750B 1493*08569, Engine 1315*05588 (not original).  This car is available at the time of publication here on Craigslist. A comprehensive photo set is available on Flickr as well.  It’s not clear how much the seller wants to get for the car, but I think $6000 is what someone who spoke to them said they wanted.

I think this car sold without the engine on Craigslist last year and if i remember correctly the asking then was $4000.

 Straight, attractive, somewhat complete and looking for love.  No, it’s not in the personals section.

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