Description
The Alfa Romeo Spider is one of only a handful of cars to be instantly recognisable even to people who have little interest in motoring – thanks mostly to its film-star good looks and indeed film appearances!
The famous bloodline started with the 1955 Giulietta Spider, which was styled by Pininfarina and featured Alfa Romeo’s legendary all-aluminium twin-cam four-cylinder engine in 1300 guise. In 1959 the 101 variant replaced the 750, with a lengthened chassis and the addition of disc brakes on the front. Then in 1963 the 101 Giulia Spider was introduced with the engine capacity increased to 1600 and 5 speed gearbox. The bonnet air scoop is an easy way to tell a Giulia from Giulietta.
In 1964, the engine from the Sprint Speciale was fitted to the Spider in order to create the Veloce model, now extremely rare. Running on twin Weber 40 DCOE2 carburettors, this uprated unit kicked out 112bhp, which gave the Spider Veloce a level of performance that complemented its timelessly elegant styling and best in class handling.
This Alfa Romeo Giulia Spider Veloce has been painstakingly restored to concours standard and has a fascinating history. Built on 27 July 1964, chassis number 390252 was dispatched to American distributor Max Hoffman on 7 August. Within a year it had been resold by Licari’s Foreign Cars in New Jersey, and its Title was registered in Florida in 1966.
In 1967-’68, it was obviously used by someone who either studied or worked at the University of South Florida, because their paper parking permit was still attached to the bumper when the current owner purchase the car in 2016! Proof if any were needed that this unique Veloce saw very little use during 50 years of its life.
In 1968, the Spider Veloce was part-exchanged at the Miami Lincoln-Mercury dealership, which in turn sold it to Gary M Gordon of Sanford, Florida. Gordon held on to it until 1975 – he later explained that it had been laid up ‘for some time’ prior to that because it needed new engine bearings.
He sold the Alfa to a friend of his by the name of Laurence Bumbalough on the understanding that he’d fix the engine and give the car a good home. Unfortunately, Bumbalough continued to drive the car as it was until eventually the engine seized. He then stripped it down but didn’t manage to complete the rebuild, and instead the engine stayed in bits until he sold the Alfa to dealer Walter Tice for $200. Tice fitted a Normale engine to replace the dismantled Veloce unit and sold the car in 1979 to a young Vietnam veteran. When he sadly died, his family kept the Spider in dry storage for most of the subsequent 30 years.
It then passed to an engineering company in Daytona Beach, which started to strip it down in preparation for a full restoration before deciding instead to sell it to the current owner. A fastidious marque enthusiast, this latest custodian set about finding a Veloce unit that had the correct serial number for the car’s 1964 chassis number. That meant it needed to be numbered between 00121-1600 and 1970, and his search suggested that there was only one anywhere in the world.
The block in question was with retired Alfa Romeo mechanic and dealer Enzo Passetti in Tressino, Italy. Passetti offered to build an engine using that block – serial number 00121-1644 – plus new, correct parts that he also had in stock, including a pair of New Old Stock Weber DCOE2 carburettors.
The Passetti engine was then mated to the original gearbox, which had been rebuilt by Bob Dove Motorsport. The rest of the Spider Veloce, meanwhile, had been stripped to a bare shell and was discovered to be remarkably sound and original – testament to how well it had been stored. The sills were strengthened and zinc-plated, and the body was restored and repainted in the original shade of Pininfarina rosso corse by Finishing Touch in Weston-super-Mare.
No expense was spared – the transmission, suspension, brakes, steering and electrical systems have all been either refurbished or replaced, and somewhere in the region of 1250 hours were spent restoring the car to its current pristine condition. Less than 100 miles have been covered since the completion of the restoration.
Now being offered for private sale, this Alfa Romeo Giulia Spider Veloce is ready to be enjoyed for the next 60 years and comes with a detailed photographic record of its restoration and a 2" binder of receipts.
