Tag: cars

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Best of France and Italy 2008

The Best of France and Italy car show takes place annually in Woodley Park, a well shaded green strip of park in Van Nuys.  If pictures are to be believed, previous years turnouts were heavy among both spectators and exhibitors but a threat of rain seemed to keep many of each away this year.  Alfa Romeo participation was particularly strong at this show, probably making up half the field, but FIAT, Citroen, Renault, ISO and others were well represented.

Below are some photographs I took and many more can be found on my Events page.

Giulietta SS 589What can I say, I’m a sucker for an SS, especially when it’s a Giulietta and one of the nicest in existence.  That guy with the bushy blonde mustache from that TV show and his crew were all over this car when I showed up. 

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Market #56: British ‘Style et luxe’ Giulia SS

Giulia SS AR10121*380784, Engine 00121*00722. This car is available here now for 44,321 Euro’s, which at todays exchange rate is $57,387 (would have been $70,000 a few weeks ago!). Elmar sent me the link to this fine specimen which is described thus:

“1965 Alfa Romeo Giulia 1600 Sprint Speciale with coachwork by Bertone. 1965. Rare RHD. Rosso with black hide. In the current ownership since 1979, this is a well known car having multiple concours awards to its credit as well as having been the subject of a number of magazine articles. The car also featured in last year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed Cartier ‘Style et Luxe’ display. Very rarely found in this condition. Please telephone or e-mail for fuller details.”

Nice Nice Nice, especially after the Project featured a few posts ago. I’m not even going to try and critique this.

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Berlina Project part 5: Road report and teething

When I started this project I had one goal: to make an economical, mechanically simple yet comfortable commuter to try and keep my BMW 3 series wagon from reaching the end of its warranty miles (100K) a year before the warranty termination date (3/10).  I think I have achieved my goal but I have had some small teething problems in addition to the long list of perceived problems I made before I started driving the Berlina daily.

At 83961 miles I put in 10.7 gallons in to fill it up.  This morning at 84,300 miles I put 10.17 gallons in.  339 miles on 10.17 gallons of gas equals 33.3 mpg.  Amazing for a 1750 with dual Dellortos and 10548 cams being driven ‘spiritedly’ as the Brit’s like to say!  Even if my odometer is off by 10% I’m doing good.  I guess the economical part of my goal is currently exceeding expectations.  It can also be said that when the fuel gauge starts looking low I still have about 5 gallons of gas.  I will take a few more MPG readings over the next few weeks and report.  I will also try and check how many miles my car thinks a mile is.

Leaky Axle seal?  Probably.  Squeek from a loose sway bar mount?  Maybe.  Worn out trunion bushes?  I hope not.  In addition to the obvious leak I get a little more wiggle in the rear end in cornering than I am used to in an Alfa and some squeeks.  I’ll probably have to stick my head under here this weekend.

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Alfa SS Project

This Giulietta or Giulia ‘Alfa SS Project’ was forwarded to me by Elmar who has seemingly volunteered to hunt down Vin numbers of SS’s for me in Europe (Thanks Elmar!!!) and I added several new SS’s to the register with his help.  The company that has this Frankenstein on their website also makes Alfa repair panels for SZ, GTA etc.  I suppose if all you have is the body, without any other parts, this sort of thing makes sense, and everyone would approach it differently so I can’t really criticize too much, but from the pictures it’s going to look like an SS body with a Spider nose and Milano wheels rather than some cool ‘ooh, what’s that’ special. 

I have long thought that a GTV or Giulietta roof on a Duetto would make for a neat special, but a Spider nose on an SS… not so much.

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Market #55: one owner baby blue Giulia Spider

Update 2/10/09:  This car has been on eBay, Hemmings and anywhere else the seller could think of.  Most recently it ended on eBay for $18,500 reserve not met with 32 bids.  The interest is there, but the seller wants too much.

Update 12/4:  This car is back on eBay.  No new photos are included and the text of the auction is the same and there is a reserve.  I suspect this auction will end about like the last time.  Juan: if you’re going to relist as car that everyone has already seen a bunch of times you HAVE to change the auction or list it with no reserve!

Update 11/25:  This car is now listed here with an asking price of $33,500 and on Hemmings for $31,500.  I still think this is a $25,000 car at most and with the economy as it is, that may even be high.

Reserve not Met!  Bidding reached $21,100 with reserve not met and the car has been relisted.  Let’s see if this car can break the relist jinx.

Giulia Spider AR*375944.  This car is available right now on eBay out of Roswell Georgia with a buy it now price of $33,000.  Fusi indicates this car is a 1963 year model and should have an engine Tipo 00112* and a  number ~08000.  Seller states that it is a one owner car with 55,000 miles.  Paint if it is original is spectacular, but I doubt it is.  This blue, renamed may times over the years in Alfa’s catalogs, is what I usually call Celeste blue, Italian for Heavenly or Sky blue.

Brightwork fit on this nose is very good, except the missing trims that go around the upper edges of the grill openings.  The mount holes for these can clearly be seen here.  I would think for $33k the seller could spring for a set since they are not usually expensive. 

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Market #54: Luzzago Giulietta Sprint Speciale auction 11/15

Giulietta Sprint Speciale 10120*00687, engine 00129*29819 (not original). This car is going to be auctioned 11/15/08 at the Luzzago in Italy. The engine is from a Giulietta TI which seems funny, but once the original is gone, almost any 101 1300 can serve as a basis to build an 00120 spec veloce engine, you just have to verify what was done. I really like the look of the car, lowered and with all extra trim removed. I’m not crazy about the white wheels and some of the interior treatments, but that’s all easy enough to deal with.

Paint looks great, note there is little reflection distortion across body lines. Home-made grill is simple but effective.

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Something about the devil and idle hands…

You know the beginning of Magnolia when the lady shoots a shotgun at her husband and misses him but hits her son who just jumped off the roof as he falls by the window? Well the pile of circumstances today wasn’t quite that profound but the result was pretty good. The story is something like this…

Possibly the most absurdly cute car ever. Don’t you just want to pinch its cheek?

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Market #53: Late 1600 Giulietta Sprint

Update 1/5/09:  This car is still available and the seller is looking to get about $25,000 for it. 

Giulia Sprint 1600 AR357309. This car is available right now on eBay and bidding is currently $18,000 Fusi says this is a 1963 Giulia Sprint 1600, no engine number is stated but it was originally a Tipo 00112 probably about 08000. Bertone number is probably about 6530000.

I’ve seen this car before on the AlfaBB and the seller seems to have a handle on what these cars are about so I am confident this is a car that is as good as it looks.

These late Sprints are neat because they have the classic Bertone Giulietta Sprint shape combined with the updated components being phased in with the Giulia Sprint Speciale, Giulia Sprint Veloce (step-nose GTV) and Giulia TI.

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Berlina project part 3: success!

My dad was in town and to keep him busy I brought him to the shop with me on Saturday afternoon a couple of weeks ago. We spent most of the time talking about the best approach and after one false start got the engine and transmission to mate up. Not an easy job when you leave the transmission in the car. Dropping the front swaybar turned out to be the trick to make two faces parallel. Once it was in I probably spent more time trying to find the correct bolts to bolt the motor mounts down than I did installing the engine.

Two successive afternoons the following week I put all the pieces together and to my amazement it fired right up. I didn’t want to try and retrofit the early 60’s 1600 Veloce airbox (though it probably would have looked very cool) so I traded it for the Euro airbox seen here. I spent $11 more than I paid for the car on a bag of parts from a local dealer including a new oil pressure send unit to put the finishing touches on the assembly part of the project.

Here it is in all its glory. I traded a late ‘scalloped with tabs’ valve cover for the smooth unit seen here with the 90 degree breather to match the airbox. Note the high out-put alternator from a late 80’s spider.

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101 1300 rebuild for Giulietta Sprint part 1: Out with the new, in with the old

If you have followed the Berlina recommission posts you know my plan was to pull the 1750 out of the Sprint, put it in the Berlina and then drop the original 101 1300 into the Sprint. A slight complication was revealed on Saturday when, while the sun dried the gas out of the Fiat gas tank, I set to work preparing the 1300 for its new (old) home. It seemed like a good idea to open the engine up enough to at least check the bores, a main bearing or two and the combustion chambers to establish a baseline of its condition.

It turned out that the spark plugs being out of the holes for 13 years (only 2 in my keeping…) allowed moisture to attack the bores and rings. I tried to hone one of the liners but wasn’t happy with the result. Oh well, piston and liner sets are not too expensive, but do I go for the 1300 normale 9.1:1, veloce 10:1 or a 1400 kit or really punch it out and go for the Conrero spec 1500? Time to fish through my wallet!

The business end of a Giulietta 1300. All and all pretty clean in here. Someone decided polishing the crank was the way to go. Note 101 1300 Nomales have the dip in the block side for the close in oil filter.

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