Tag: cars

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Pixar’s 2008 Motorama

Every Summer Pixar’s in-house car show Motorama takes place on the magnificent Pixar grounds.  Designed as an opportunity for Pixar employees to show off their rides and hang out, the show presents an interesting cross section, as is evidenced in the event photos. 

I really like the free-for-all, run-what-you-brung nature of this show.  Too often I find myself bored at a car show, wondering how many more Corvettes or new Ferrari’s I can look at before I am completely desensitized.  Highlights for me included a Pixar employee owned perfect VW split window camper bus, a Peugeot 402 articulated hard-top cabriolet on loan from Fantasy Junction, a Norton Manx engined Cooper and a gorgeous red and silver Lotus Elite.  Here are a few of my favorite pictures, the rest can be seen here.

BMW /2 in the Pixar atrium.

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Giulietta Sprint Accessories part 2

Right after the last installment on Giulietta accessories these two black and white pictures were discovered. I have read that a Bertone technical booklet exists detailing all of the possible accessories but I don’t suppose I’ll ever see it.

The first picture is of a 750 series Sprint and shows several accessories and an anomaly I’ve never seen elsewhere. The most obvious accessory in this picture is the fog lamp kit. It differs from the 101 kit in that the grill opening surrounds are unmodified, just the grill bars were modified to mount the fog lights. The lights really look a lot like Hella 128 items in this picture. I wonder what sort of switch they used and where it was mounted.

This 750 Sprint wears a lot of the available accessories. I wonder if it is one of the early prototypes?

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1955 Motogiro footage

If you are a fan of Alfa Romeo Giulietta’s there is a pretty good chance you also have an appreciation for Italian motorcycles from the same era. The clip below fulfills both interests and gives a glimpse of road-race competition protocol in Italy in the 50’s. If you look closely there are several Romeo vans kitted as team transporters, a Giulietta Berlina at about 1:25 and best of all lots of footage of the trailing press car, a Lancia Aurelia Spider America, close cousin of the Pininfarina Giulietta Spider. Enjoy.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7I-0mD38kU]

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Sprint Veloce Fuel pump almost final fix

I have this approach I’ve noticed when faced with a job I don’t necessarily want to do on one of my cars, it’s called procrastination, you might have heard of it.  As necessity is the mother of invention it is just as strongly the enemy of procrastination and I it took me having two unavoidable reasons and a little good luck to effect an almost final fix for this fuel pump issue.  The first good reason was the need to give Kip back his SU fuel pump that was given temporary duties on the SV (I was going to see him on Sunday at a shop warming party), the second is the requested attendance of this car at Pixar’s Motorama this Friday afternoon.  The little bit of good luck was a friend having a new Facet fuel pump kit bought specifically for a weber equipped Giulietta Spider that was no longer in his life.  With no good rationalization left to enable procrastinate, I went to my shop yesterday determined to mount, plumb and wire the new fuel pump.

Nice new Facet fuel pump hanging out with 50 years of scummy crud on the underside of the Sprint Veloce.  Note shock isolation mounts, like little motor mounts, and grounding wire.

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Market #32: Giulietta 750B half-off sale

Giulietta Sprint 750B 1493*01864. On eBay right now, starting bid is $1000. Vin on this seemingly very straight Sprint nose corresponds to early 1956. This would probably be ideal for the buyer of the smashed Confortevole or perhaps the basis of an interesting project for the right person. I know project?? Am I crazy? Well, if you know something about the origins of the Sprint Zagato you may have heard of the group of cars collectively known as Sprint Veloce Zagato’s.

I goes something like this: You go off the road, down an embankment into a ravine and end up upside down wedged between a tree and some rocks. You climb bruised and battered from your recently purchased and expensive Sprint Veloce. Two weeks later you deliver the car to carrozzeria Zagato to get it fixed. Elio looks it over and tells you it would be cheaper to cut most of the original crushed body work away and make a new body from aluminum than to restore it. Oh, and by the way he can make it lighter and more aerodynamic in the process, you’ve seen the ‘double-bubble’ roof right?

Only Sprint Veloce Zagato’s were not all Veloce’s or even Sprints for that matter. A modern SVZ recreation if sold as such is still a very sought after and expensive car.

Nice nose. No deep rot to be seen, lots of small parts that are hard to find still bolted and screwed into place etc.

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Giulietta Sprint Accessories

When I went shopping for a modern car last year I was surprised by the number of accessories available, the fact that cars came pre-optioned for the most part, and how expensive additional accessories were.  Accessories are nothing new when it comes to cars, windows and lights were accessories in the early days!  The Giuliettas were no exception and the picture below, from a 1958 brochure, reprinted in the Alfieri book shows some interesting accessories that could be missed by the casual observer.

“Fog lamps fittings. It can be ordered as a seperate unit complete with mounting brackets and hollow intake fairing, painted in the colour of the car. Please specify No. of chassis.”

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Giulietta Sprint with broken throttle video

When you take an old car out on a tour or rally far from civilization, you have to be prepared to either figure out a way to limp home, leave your car and go borrow a truck and trailer, or pay a big towing bill.  I’m not saying old cars are inherently unreliable, it’s just that, if like me, you do a lot of the work on your cars yourself, this preparedness is a simple admission that your skills have their limits.  

The guys in this video hopefully got the McGuyver trophy if they didn’t win. 

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=STB9E4pTyBE]

Broken throttle linkage?  No problem.  Enzo, get out there and use your hand, you’ll know when I’m going to shift. 

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Market #30: Orange 750B project in Europe

Update 7/14/08: Price is now 15,999 Euros.

Update: Overnight the price went from 12,499 to 16,999 Euro’s.  I wonder what they are thinking.  See the comment below for a European perspective.  Perhaps they saw this car.

1957 Sprint 750B 1493*04327, Engine 1315*03847. This car, with an asking price of 12,499 Euro’s, verifies my claim that 750B’s are regarded as being worth a premium compared to 101 style cars. This makes sense considering the hand made nature and relative rarity of this model, with roughly 6500 being made, Veloce’s included, compared to probably more than 25,000 of the later style.

Classified text reads: “CH Fahrzeug aus 3.Hand – 1968 zerlegt & total Restauriert – Seit 30 Jahren Stillgelegt – Zylinderkopf demontiert, mit Doppel Weber Vergaser (Sprint Veloce). Die Orig. Farbe des Gulietta war weiss ! – Fahrzeug ist complet, wenig Rost, zum Restaurieren!”

Or via Google language tools if you prefer English: “CH vehicle 3.Hand – 1968 decomposed & total Restored – For 30 years Decommissioned – cylinder head dismantled, with double Weber carburetor (Sprint Veloce). The color of Orig Gulietta was white! — Vehicle is complet, little rust, to restore!”

Not too bad really. The nose looks straight as does all the trim. Drivers side headlight ring is missing. I like the fog lights. Apparently this car was in the sun long enough to fade the paint.

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Alfa Romeo Archivio Storico information request

If you send an email to: ArchivioStorico@alfaromeo.com with a request for information regarding your Alfa they will get back to you with an email telling you what is in their records. I did this for my Sprint Speciale and this was their reply.

Dear Mister Hamilton,

 with reference to your request we are informing you as follows.

 According to our documentation files, the chassis number AR 101.20.00413 originally corresponds to an Alfa Romeo Giulietta Sprint Speciale, manufactured on the 9th March 1961 and sold on the 13th March 1961 to Società per il Commercio dei Prodotti Alfa Romeo. Lugano, Switzerland.

The body colour is Alfa red.

 Yours, Sincerely,

 Marco Fazio 

 

I have seen a photograph of the pages from one of their records that was published in the ‘Giuliettaletta’ autumn 2007 issue and they are very neat to see. The particular record in the photo runs from October 2nd 1957 to November 22, 1957 and has details for cars 05433 to 05451, 19 cars, all written out in beautiful Italian long-hand. I recommend you join the Giulietta Register and request this issue if you want to see this spread.
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Market #28: Rough Giulia 1600 Sprint project

Reserve not Met.  Auction ended at $3300 on 7/6/08.  This ending price is probably the parts value of the car.  I would guess the reserve was $3500 or $4000.  Car has been relisted and I’m not sure but I think there are additional photos.

Giulia Sprint 1600 10112*356469. Yet another project Sprint from the eBay seller out of Newport Beach. Whoever bought the subject of Market #11 might consider this car as a co-project to make two into one from with that car. With values where they are today a Sprint like this is in a much better position for survival than it has ever been. That said, I think this car is a better value as a source of parts than as a restoration project, though the optimist in me would love to see it restored.

The body is for the most part straight, with the usual decent panel gaps and trim fit. It has rust issues, probably not terminal but challenging. Replaced rear drivers corner could hide major headaches, but with cut out and weld in rust repairs to do anyway it would probably fade to background noise by the time you got to it.

Even in near death the Sprint is beautiful. Drivers side headlight is neat period Marchal unit. Headlight rings mismatch. Front bumber in picture is not original.

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