750 and 101 series cars 1954 – 1965
If you ever wondered what it would have been like if ‘Streets of San Francisco’ had a sister show in Italy then wonder no more. This Maurizio Merli clip from the early 70’s is pretty tough, with all the obligatory car chase moves including avoiding baby-stroller pushing pedestrians, crashing through a flower stand and kicking out a broken windshield. Awesome! Maybe the Berlina needs to be Italian Police spec.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYcbgBpMYXE&feature=related]
When I bought the 1959 Giulietta Sprint a few years back the PO had installed Duetto round tail Spider seats in it. I never really learned to like them so when a pair of unknown Italian, probably Alfa Romeo or Fiat seats in good shape for $300 came up for sale on Craigslist I decided to go for it and bought them.Â
There were no seat tracks included and one seat had a rusted bolt broken off in the base but other than that they were in original and very nice condition. I pulled the Duetto seats out and sold them to a friend which turned out to be a mistake because it didn’t occur to me that the track widths of the seats could be different than the car.  Last weekend, a year after removing the Spider seats, I finally got both seats neatly and permanently mounted.Â
“Fabricato Dalla Suardi Francesco & Figlio, VIA BINDA N 20, TEL. 470-412, MILANO.” Anyone know anything about these people?
I did a quick calculation and found that at my current usage, I would reach the end of the warranty on my daily driver at 100,000 miles 13 months before the term of the warranty is up in March or 2010. Time to get a cheap commuter!
My commute is 30 miles each way and I travel both ways at the early edge of the 880 traffic, so unless there is an accident I get to do 35 – 60 mph the whole way. A beater pre-smog sedan with a 5 speed and an economical engine would be a perfect commuter for me. I didn’t have much to spend initially so I had low expectations about what I would find, but I figured I could drive the 1959 Sprint until something turned up.
Last Saturday I went by a friends Alfa repair shop to buy some Sprint interior trim I needed for the Sprint Veloce and this car was parked on the street out front. I asked what was going on with it and I was told the engine was coming out then it was going to the local Alfa pick-n-pull, unless of course I wanted it. I asked how much and for the same price as the hand full of Sprint interior trim I bought it.
1972 Berlina 11500*3000189, California Blue plate 564 GQB. Originally Silver with black interior. Doesn’t look too bad.
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?
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.
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.
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.”
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. Â
The guys in this video hopefully got the McGuyver trophy if they didn’t win.Â
[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.Â
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.
Continue reading “Market #30: Orange 750B project in Europe”
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 FazioÂ
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