Giuliettas – Page 9 – 750 and 101 series cars 1954

September 19, 2015

Top 10 Production Alfa Giuliettas

There is something irresistible about a top ten list. Whether its hamburgers, airlines, supermodels or carnivorous plants, it’s always fun to critique and/or learn something new. After much consideration, here are my top ten production Giuliettas. I’ll do a non-production variation later with prototypes, re-bodies and such. What are your top ten?

1. Giulietta Sprint Zagato Coda Tronca. Beautiful, elegant, purposeful and rare. Alfa and Zagato together at the inception of what would become the TZ series. With what 17 (or is it 35) ?? built, it’s among the lowest number production Giulietta variant. They are expensive, but seem like they ought to be more expensive than they are.

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September 18, 2015

Support your local Giuliettas blogger!

I started a campaign at Patreon to allow readers to support the site if they chose. It’s basically Kickstarter in a monthly pledge form -kind of like my local NPR station is doing right now.

I’ve been enjoying writing lately and I think having an awareness of the value readers put on what I do would be helpful to keep me focused (Carrot) and that failing, motivated by a sense of obligation (stick).

Any money pledged not spent on site maintenance is going to go in my “hire a developer” fund to make the $8000 – $10000 worth of changes I am hoping to make sometime by the end of 2016. What kind of changes you ask? Well, The register is an amazing resource on one hand, and a disaster to use on the other. The redesign will make it much easier to use, and give readers a chance to take over adding information about their cars if they want. Also on the redesign menu will be a files section where I put scans of manuals, brochures etc for use by readers. There is a lot more, but it’s hard to communicate without a chalk board.

If Patreon seems a little weird, you can still just make a donation via the button on the “Support Giuliettas” page up there below that picture of my car I need to replace.

Thanks!

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September 18, 2015

Market 505: Spider 750D 03800 on BaT Auctions

Spider 750D 1495*03800, 1315*43557. This Spider sold September 16th 2015 via a BringaTrailer (BaT) auction for $58,800. If I read their rules right, seller will see $58,550 of this – not too bad! Buyer pays 5%, up to a max of $5000 to BaT, making this a $61,700 purchase. Auction has no fixed end time -as long as there is a bid within 3 minutes of the last bid after the end date/time, it keeps going, and there is no fixed bid value increment – you can beat the last guy by a penny! Pretty cool.

Handsome car this. Ready to be used and hopefully enjoyed.

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September 17, 2015

Market 504: Spider 392429 The Walking Dead

Giulia Spider 10123*392429, 00112*16057. Just because it can be done, doesn’t mean it should. This car sold for $8000 on eBay recently, very very very likely for its parts. Look at it. Under the red rattle can is, well, about 40% of a Spider. The closer to the ground you get, the less there is until you reach the thin film of rust scale that inevitably forms under it whenever left in one place for an extended period. There are places where you could take a 1 foot by 1 foot sample of where you think a Spider ought to be, and not get any metal at all -good thing you are a human and can see that the missing piece is the missing piece of a car.

It looks not too bad from this angle, but like that scene in a horror show/movie, you haven’t yet realized you are seeing the dead, because from this angle it just looks like an attractive woman. The dead with great door to body panel gaps.

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September 16, 2015

Market 503: 10103 370029 first of the last 1300 Spiders

Giulietta Spider 10103 370029. This Spider, one of the first examples from the last series of 1300’s is available on eBay now out of Southern California. Buy it Now price is $75,000, somewhat high for this particular series -despite its nice fit and finish. (For comparison, Fantasy Junction has a SWB 750F Veloce for $95,000).

Very nice car in a domain to make most car guys jealous. Everything fits together well enough that I am going to guess this is a car that has not seen major work.

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September 15, 2015

The Continuing Story of Sprint 20379

The post about VINs and years and all got me thinking about the real history of these cars. History, in the collective sense, is a view from a perspective, a mix of what appears to have happened (or what you are told happened), and small pieces of hard information; data that modifies this general history as what actually happened is discovered. I guess you could say you start out viewing it as a forest, but recognize that it is ultimately the story of many individual trees. Why make this analogy? A register of VINs is a forest, an individual car you have had a relationship with is a tree. I own a 1959 Giulietta Sprint, and could leave it at that, but today I won’t. I’ll think of its history as a series of moments rather than a serial entry in a range on a data sheet.

I own Giulietta Sprint 10105 20379, with engine 1315*010669. It started out as ore in some third world country, ore that came together following an engineered manufacturing plan, as refined metal in 1958 most likely. It was stamped and cast then touched by many skilled hands in the Bertone factory as individual parts were fitted, paint and polish applied. It was inspected, tested, and ultimately put on a ship bound for the USA as part of some money making scheme.

It’s like a half remembered dream. This is pre-Rufus by a good 7 years. A lot of my personal history in one picture.

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September 11, 2015

What year is my Alfa Romeo Giulietta?

I get questions from readers every few days about what year a certain car is given a VIN number, or what car a given engine number would have originally come in, or if an engine is original to a particular car. The information to answer these questions is scattered around this website, but it being a blog and not a very well organized one, it’s hard to find.

So, here it is, the Giulietta VIN and engine number cheat sheet. I apologize for the length and complexity of what was supposed to be an easy read, but I couldn’t figure out how to dumb it down much more.

This is an original build plate. Notice it has model, body and engine numbers. Notice the font. This is the easiest way to tell if a car has a matching engine. See caveat III below.

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September 8, 2015

Market 400 (!!): Sprint Veloce 750E 08765

Update September 7 2015: This car is available again on eBay out of Brunswick Georgia, maybe the same seller as last time? Still needs a lot of work. I don’t remember what the last asking price was., but now it’s $35,000.

Update March 9 2012: I received some less than encouraging pictures of the underside of the car from someone who knew it -it’s got some structural rust that will be difficult to fix. Check it out.

This is thick, difficult to replace metal. Will be fun for who ever gets to repair it -even more so for the check writer!

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September 7, 2015

Market 388: SS 00242 in New Jersey

Update September 15 2015: Reserve not met at $65,200.

Apparently SS values have gone up $6000 since this car was last listed. I think I would have been tempted to sell.

Update September 7 2015: This car has reappeared, this time on eBay being sold out of Florham Park New Jersey.

I was just last night talking to a friend and SS owner about the value prospects for the SS these days across the project to perfect spectrum. He opined that they had actually gone down a bit in the last few years by his reckoning. Not some huge slide or anything, just market forces balancing restoration quality of cars bought and improved to make a quick buck, that seem to come back on the market repeatedly, driving values down a bit as a result; versus genuine ‘restored for the love of the thing’ cars that not only look good but are complete, correct and actually a pleasure to drive. Projects aren’t seeing the frenzy of 2 years ago, while the number of prospective owners out there is probably a bit stagnant and not as deep pocketed as the few high priced auction examples would have you think. I’m sure there are lots of Alfisti would happily add an SS to their stable, the question is, at what price? And then there is the almost absurdly high survivorship of SSs -probably above 20% tracked on this humble site alone.

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September 6, 2015

Market 502: Spider 10123 373466 ‘closest to the door’

Update September 15 2015: 54 is a lot of bids! $25,355 is decent money.

Giulia Spider 1600 10123*373466. This car is on eBay available out of Waynesville North Carolina. Seller says “At this time I am only interested in selling one car from my collection and this Alfa is the easiest to get out.” Neat collection and as good a criteria as any other I suppose for choosing which car to sell. Car is not too bad looking, could probably be put on the road with a couple weekends work if the engine and clutch are healthy.

Not a bad nose. Bumpers will need attention, or to be removed in pursuit of a sporty look. Good starting point.

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