Tag: Italian cars

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Details #1: IPRA Torino Heater box markings

If you are restoring a Giulietta Sprint Speciale or Spider (or possibly many other late 50’s or early 60’s Italian cars Fiat, Ferrari, Maserati, Lancia etc among them) to as-new condition and are obsessed (I mean really obsessed) with originality, then you may have given thought to reproducing factory markings. These cars were made by hand then assembled by hand from parts that were made by hand. Hand written grease pencil notes on the backs of upholstery cards and on interior surfaces, hand stamped serial numbers, hand applied decals and rubber stamps all characterize these cars and the circumstances under which they were made. Erasing, preserving or recreating these markings during a restoration is a matter of personal choice. I don’t know if points are awarded or taken away during judging at serious concours events but if the spirit of the competition is to recreate the ‘new’ car then it seems to me these markings should be present.

The first item in my ‘Original Details’ section is this heaterbox, as removed from a very original Giulietta Sprint Speciale.

‘E’ in a box with an arrow pointing up. Water Entrata? Continue reading “Details #1: IPRA Torino Heater box markings”

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Market #19: Another Italian Ebay 101 Giulietta Sprint Veloce

As if in response to my declaration in Special Sprints #11 that good 101 Sprint Veloce’s seem to be going for $55,000 this 1960 Sprint Veloce appears on Italian eBay with a 36,000 Euro price tag, about $56,000.

The color of this car is Tornado Blue, very rare on these early cars. As explained in Special Sprints #9, Italian eBay is different from eBay USA in that car listings are more like the classifieds found in classic car magazines. You get a brief description of the car, some low resolution pictures and an email and phone number to use to contact the seller.

Looks like an honest enough car. Not sure I’d keep the sail out front. Grills, headlight rings and all the other trim look good.

Continue reading “Market #19: Another Italian Ebay 101 Giulietta Sprint Veloce”

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Market #18: Stunning silver Giulietta Sprint Speciale

This 1961 Giulietta Sprint Speciale is listed for sale on several European classic car classified websites and is described as having been restored in Denmark in about 1989 and currently licensed there. Asking price is 36,000 Euro’s, about $55,000 at the time of writing. If this car is as good as it looks this is probably a good deal, but from California, the requisite journey to inspect the car and then the shipping to get it home would add as much as $10,000 to the purchase price.

Restored SS’s are seldom seen in silver. Most of these cars seem to get returned to their original color and I don’t think silver was on the stock palette, though with Alfa you could probably call them up and get whatever you wanted for a price. Chrome bright-work up front blends in and is almost lost in the beautifully finished paint. This is the effect I enjoy so much on the 007 DB5 Aston. It doesn’t scream ‘look at me’ like a shiny red car with a chrome grill, it doesn’t have to. You can’t help but look.

Very classy looking car from this angle. Bodywork is arrow straight and fussy, hard to make right front trim all fits together perfectly.

Continue reading “Market #18: Stunning silver Giulietta Sprint Speciale”

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Market #17: a trio of sold 101 Veloces

These three Sprint Veloces sold just before I started this blog. It is my goal to track as many as possible of the sales of Speciales and Veloces so that in the years to come trends may be detected besides the simple upward trend that these cars seem to be enjoying.

1961 Giulietta Sprint Veloce Tipo 10106 AR*E159111, engine 00106*02376. An absolutely stunning example sensibly restored with a perfectly complementary mix of original and new parts. This car sold in April. Asking price was $57,500. This car sold very quickly which tells me that it probably sold for the asking price and the buyer probably had been looking for a very high quality Sprint Veloce. A visit to Fantasy Junctions sold cars page to see this car is worthwhile, the description is thorough and there are 54 high quality pictures to enjoy.

Straight, clean and shiny. Good panel and trim fit. Bumper looks slightly higher on drivers side, but it may just be an illusion from shadows. This car looks good no matter how close you get.

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Suspension #4: Drivers side front assembly part 1

It’s nice to have a couple of working examples hanging around the shop to supplement the parts book when it comes to finalizing assemblies. Even when taking care to label and organize parts as they come apart it’s possible to mix them up and if they have been apart before, which on a 47 year old car you have to assume they have, it’s possible they are not put together correctly in the first place. I started on the complete sinestro (left) front suspension assembly with the goal of having it completely ready to bolt on the car before I moved on to the destro assembly. All of the upper wishbone parts had been cleaned and painted before I started this blog so I will deal with the assembly now as a whole for simplicity and look at most of the individual parts later in the blog as I work on the destro unit.

The first two pictures below are of the destro assembly to give an idea of the condition of the sinestro parts before I started work.

Complete lower Destro Wishbone assembly ready for hours of attention. This should give an idea of how much work went into the Sinestro assembly.

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Market #16: Veloce-ized clean Sprint

Giulietta Sprint ‘Normale’ Tipo 10102 1493*23260. This presentable Giulietta Sprint has been on Fantasy Junction’s ‘off-site’ cars page for at least a year. The $24,500 asking price seemed high for this car the first time I looked at the ad but I think the market may have come around and this is probably a decent deal now if it is still available at this price. According to Fusi the serial number for this car falls in the 1960 10102 Giulietta Sprint range (1493*21488 – 26200). As usual stated year of 1963 is probably what is on the title.

First impression is good with this car. I like the color, the paint work is, as described in the ad text ‘very good from a few feet away… but not Pebble Beach quality’ and the bright-work is said to all have been re-chromed. There are 28 high quality pictures on their web site documenting every corner of the car, so I can’t gripe about a lack of good presentation. The details of the car are just enough to make you call for more if you were interested. I don’t know that ‘adorable’ is an adjective I’d use to describe these cars, but maybe someones grandmother helped write their description.

Looking good. I like the little mirrors and Italian plate ‘TO’ is for Torino if I’m not mistaken. I don’t usually like the orange turn signal lenses but they compliment the blue on this car. Continue reading “Market #16: Veloce-ized clean Sprint”

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Very cool photography link with Giulietta Sprint and Sprint Speciale content

This link was sent to me the other day and the premise is a pretty cool twist on the idea of re-enacting famous photographs.

“Automotive Monogamy”

Both the Sprint Speciale and its owner are nicely preserved. I wonder if there is a correlation between how one takes care of ones things and how one takes care of ones self.

I have some photographs of me about 16 years ago when I first got my 1974 Triumph Trident motorcycle that I still have and which is still in the same shape as it was then, maybe I should add my own chapter to this book.

If any of you readers out there has a car that you’ve had a long time, consider documenting your ownership in the same way. Your ancestors will appreciate it.

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Suspension #3: rear axle rebound straps

Rebound limit straps are very important, if the rear axle were allowed to rebound freely away from the body without them, due to a large bump, the single nut at the upper end of the shocks is the next limiting devise. This nut is small and the sheet metal it mounts the shock to is not thick so damage to this area is easily possible. The straps are a strip of layered canvas bonded with rubber which is clamped together by metal plates held together by nuts and bolts to form a loop. A rubber bump stop limits axle travel toward the body. Conveniently the strap and bump stop are incorporated into the same assembly.

This strap, although frayed, is still in one piece and functional.

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Bodywork #4: Scraping through 47 years of crud

Removal of the gas tank, the aerodynamic panel between the gas tank and rear body edge, the rear axle, rebound straps, clutch linkages, emergency brake linkages and lots of other little stuff was hard work made much more difficult by the presence of about 1/4″ of accumulated crud.  The crud is a mix of grease, road dirt and dust, oil, undercoating, and other debris hardened over the years by continual wetting and drying, heating and cooling.   In many cases I had to use a screwdriver and wire brush to expose the bolts holding an assembly together and clean the treads so I could get it apart.  I can’t complain too much about this crud though because it protected the metal in these areas from the elements and kept it free of rust.

The tools I used for this job were a 3″ wide putty knife/paint scraper with a sharp edge, a dull pocket knife, a wide bladed screwdriver and a course bristle wire brush.  Before climbing under the car I put all 6 of my jack stands under it in case I shook it loose with my scraping, I don’t want to end the project prematurely by having the clutch pivot mounting bracket pierce my lung when the car slips off of a stand.  I should add that I wore a respirator, eye protection, gloves and a ski cap.  Even with this safety equipment I usually went home with dirty fingernails, eyes red from frequently fishing chunks out of them that got around the glasses and black snot (sorry, I have allergies and blow my nose a lot…).  The hat was not so much a safety precaution as a practical way to keep from having to shampoo 6 times to get all the junk out of my hair, like I did the first night.

If not for the rebound strap this shot could be anywhere under the car.  I took this picture so I could refer to it later when putting the restored rebound strap assemblies on the car.

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Market #13: Italian eBay Sprint Veloce

I love Italian eBay. Spending an hour or two some quiet evening with a glass of red wine (Barolo or Amarone works best) and a fast internet connection, looking through page after page of interesting cars, most of which never made it to the US, is both great fun and a learning experience. I tend to forget that at one point all the cars on the road were what we now call old and in places like Italy and France, this means that there are still lots of clean original interesting old cars looking for new homes. I suppose eventually even the supply in these countries will run out. Someday, before they are all gone, I’m going to go to Italy, buy a one owner perfect original Giulietta TI, preferably a 56 or 57 model, tour around in it for a month then ship it home.

I came across this car during my last window shopping spree on Italian eBay. A restored 1962 Giulietta Sprint Veloce in Vespolate, a village about an hour south-west of Milan. Italian eBay auctions are different from American auctions, they are more like an advertisement in the back of a classic car magazine, giving only the minimum information about the car and an email and phone number to call if you are interested.

Celeste SV pensively poses for photos outside the gates of the biggest house in the village. Maybe my next owner will drive me more…

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