Tag: Alfa Romeo

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Market 106: Interim US market Sprint, a perfect project?

Update 4/16/09: Wow!  $18,701 with 47 bidders.  That is a very very strong result.  I think this result comes from the market trend over the last few years to add extra value to really good original, as found, un-molested, etc honest cars that a collector or skilled restorer salivates over as basis for concours restoration starting points.  Look for a flood of auctions to ride this auctions coat-tails.

Update 4/11/09: Link fixed!  Sorry about that.

Giulietta Sprint 10105 1493*21140. Available now on eBay is this rather handsome devil, fresh out of long term storage in a collection and looking for action, or at least a new owner with the pocket book or skills to put it back on the road. Seller sold the the two tone SS that was on eBay last week and by the sound of things will have more Alfa’s for sale in the coming days.

sprint 21140 frontLooks like an orangish respray has been polished through on the nose. Grills, bumper etc look great. No hood spear?

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Market 105: Sprint Special 00339, best project yet!

Giulietta Sprint Speciale 10120*00339, engine 00120*00611. This car is available right now from The Car Nut in Georgia. The seller says the price depends on where he is in the restoration ($45,000 as of 4/8/09, 5:42 pm) when a buyer appears which is practical. It looks to me like all that is really left to do is the clean assembly that can seem to take forever but is generally regarded as fun. The body looks to have been finished to a very high standard and silver is a good color for SS’s, as evidenced also in Market 18.

ss 339 front WIPWork in Progress. Those wheels are odd, but the seller indicates originals with new caps are included. If this car is as nice in person as the pictures, this is a great deal.

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Market 103: 10123*379585 Spider project

Update 4/14/09: Car sold for $9211 with 21 bidders not a bad result for the seller and depending on what the buyer wants, probably a good deal for them too.

Giulia Spider 10123*379585. This car is available right now on eBay out of San Luis Obispo with a low starting big and hopefully a reasonable reserve. These late 1600 Spiders were a last-ditch effort by Alfa and Pininfarina who was tooling up for the 105 Spider launch. While they lack some of the detail charm of their earlier siblings, they are probably the most easy going on the road due to the 1600 single carb engine, disk brakes and 5 speed.

379585 noseChrome and all looks smart. The hood gap is even all the way around and the paint has good shine.

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101 1300 19: made it through another recession…

I know, you’ve all grown bored with my never ending engine rebuild. Well, let me tell you, no one is as tired of it as my back and shoulders! I wonder how Sisyfus would have felt about a never ending series of installation and removals of an Alfa transmission. Yeah yeah, boo hoo your thinking, I deserve all I get if I keep making these rookie moves.

Achem, okay, enough about that. In a mere 5 hours, spread out over three days, I managed to swap out the friction disk with a NEW one that I sourced from Glenn late Saturday afternoon while couch shopping. Now, once again I am on to the next thing and the next thing is on new ground, but first a short recap.

old-discOld disk is .33665 inches or about 8.5mm. The shop manual says 6mm is the limit of wear. The linings were a little loose on the metal part of the disk so I suspect I could have compressed the disk a little more, maybe to 8mm. It’s possible a pressure plate adjustment to account for the springs settling over the years would have made this disk useable to 6mm. I’m not going to find out.

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101 1300 18: more slow progress

Even though I haven’t mentioned it in a while I am continuing on with the Sprint. This Saturday I got back around to the Weber vacuum leak work. I installed the DCD again with the newly lapped mounting base and hooked it all back up, the car still refused to idle and runs rougher than it should off idle. Needing a reality check I decided to install the Solex that came with my old TI. It had been off the road for several years and looked bad on the outside but it was clean on the inside and I knew it worked since I drove the TI with this carb installed for 20,000 or more miles.

sprint-solexThe Solex bolted into place. It’s hard to see but the PO spray painted the carb silver, screws, washers, springs, levers and all.

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Market 99: Two-tone Giulia SS project

Update 3/31/09: Auction ended at $32,299 with 32 bids.  This is strong money and reaffirms that SS’s are sought after right now.  If the new owner is happy with the cosmetic condition and drops it off at a shop to be made to run and drive they will probabkly be $50K into it when they take their first test drive.  They will be pushing $60K if they decide the two-tone paint needs to be rectified.  The DIY home mechanic could probably see this on the road for about $40K out of pocket.  The white SS that was on eBay recently is looking better when all this is considered.

Update 3/29/09: A kind reader took some pictures when he went to see it in person. He reported that it needs more work than he thought it would before seeing it and that the paint was not as good as it looks in the pictures.  Still, this is one of the better SS projects to show up in a while.  Spy shots here.
Giulia Sprint Speciale 10121*381357, no engine number stated, but said to be original. Available right now on eBay out of La Habra Ca is this 1965 SS. Seller says it’s a 1966 but it was (according to Fusi and d&T) made in 1965, the year production ceased at car number 381399. The two tone treatment is reminiscent in my opinion to that seen on some Lotus Elites. Some assembly required.

bpkmrgqwkkgrhgoh-c4ejlllzvvhbjyrl3p66g_1This is a great angle for SS’s. I like the two-tone treatment, but would consider painting the roof to match the body color.

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Today I’m 101 200 603 72,434

The careful reader will know that the 101 is for the number of Market reports I’ve written. I suppose the same reader could guess that 200 is the total number of posts I’ve written for this blog. 603 is the most page views I’ve had in a day, there is no average to be seen, but I would guess around 275. 72,434 is my total visitors, doubtful if they are unique.

What good have I done? Not sure. I’ve been tempted to write a market wrap up but that sounds like a lot of work, maybe at the end of a year. I have this crazy idea that I could develop a Giulietta value calulator based on actual sale prices now that I have a pretty good catalog of auction results.  I’ve gotten a lot of work done on my Sprint, enjoyed the daily commute company of a fine Berlina and gathered a lot of good parts for my SS project. Through all these I’ve had you here to keep me honest and on track. Thanks!

Oh, and check out my new ‘Production and Register’ page. I think the format has stabilized now that I have accepted it has to be edited in HTML.  If your car’s not there drop me a line!

threeqsssRandom period SS photo to fulfill be word-to-photo quota.

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Market 101: From the endless supply of Spider projects 1495*04751…

Update 3/30/09: This car endded with 2 bids at $4000 reserve not met.  I think a few more revealing pictures (underside, floors etc) and a clear statement about the engine (numbers, completeness and condition) would see this car get bid up a little higher. 

Giulietta Spider 750D 1495*04751.  This car is on eBay right now out of Pittsburg PA and represents a fairly average Spider project considering what’s gone through eBay the last year.  Seller states that the buyer has a choice of engines, either a dry sump (?) 00551*02329 or one that is “more original”.  As always I would want a lot more pictures, or to make a personal visit before I committed to buy, but it’s pretty clear this car is incomplete and needs work done to everything.  On the bright side you end up with a rare  early Giulietta Spider when you’re done.

66c3_3The pictures certainly don’t disappoint if you come here to gawk in that ‘watching a car crash happen’ sort of way.  Nose panel isn’t too bad, having a seemingly unmolested ‘bump’ to receive the top center of the grill.

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Market 100: Late Spider project

Update 3/30/09: Auction ended with 13 bids and a closing price of $4250, reserve not met.  Considering the seller paid $1500 for it and is going for a quick flip, I would think this would be a perfectly acceptible price.  Oh well, look for this car to reappear on eBay and elsewhere until either the seller reconsiders how much they should take for it or someone who wants this exact car shows up.

Giulia Spider 101.23 AR392006, Engine 00112*15462. Car should probably be 379206. This car is on eBay right now at about $2700 with 2 days to go and Hemmings.com with an asking price of $7000. The seller Fat Dog frequently sells Alfa and other vintage parts so he knows his wares somewhat. There is a Fat Dog in Berkeley that owns a guitar shop, anyone know why a guy would call himself Fat Dog? Is it a Grateful Dead song reference?

bo6romqbmkkgrhgoh-csejlllzpb1bjdzhdz5_3Lookin’ not so good. Well, all things considered and for the right money this could be a decent place to start your quest to own a Giulia Spider, but with less rusty, near-to-running projects seemingly abounding these days and less than $10K, why not spend a little more and save yourself a lot of work. I know, there is a whole class of Alfa guy who prides themselves on bringing cars back, and for those guys this is perfect.

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Berlina Register Newsletter 28 out now!

Andrew likes to keep us up to date on the Berlina world by reporting sales, stories and the like in his newsletters. Newsletter 28 (berlet28) appeared in my email box yesterday so naturally I decided to post about it.  I’ve noticed the last few years he has strayed from the primary topic (Berlinas) and it has become more and more the Alfa Sedan Register Newsletter. Yours truly features in one of the sale reports, as I did in Berlina Newsletter 27.   Stay tuned for the next installment on that front where I will likely feature again, perhaps twice in Newsletter 29, which will put me in there three issues running.   If you go to the Berlina register website (there’s a link on my homepage) you can find an archive of all of his Newsletters going back to when market reports included $800 Berlina original runner/drivers that would be $8000 these days.  So it goes.

SF Gate published an article about Andrew in their CARS section recently that is linked below.

SF Gate article about Andrew.

andrew_alfa_4The SF Gate article included a photo session but strangely there are no pictures with the article anymore.  Here’s Andrew with his Super.