I bought and started restoration of
this car in 1983. Purchased from a gentleman in St. Louis, this
was his 16th Alfa. It is a close as I could find to the first
Alfa I owned in the 1960s - my first sports car. Much of the
time spent on this restoration was searching for parts. It went
into storage after completion and was taken out in the summer
of 2001. Since replacement parts sources were rare, Alfa Owner
Magazine became my best source of used parts. One of my best
sources became a musician in Seattle who had a virtual cache
of Giulietta parts in the basement of the apartment building
he lived in. The restoration took several years with body shop
changes and finally completed in 1986. The car was driven a few
years and then business interested prompted storage for almost
15 years. In 2001 it was taken from storage and with surprising
little effort brought back into running condition.
Nuccio Bertone
If you don't
know Alfa Giuliettas, the history that follows will be of interest.
The Giulietta
model Alfa Romeo coupe was the first post World War II Alfa Romeo sports car to go into series
production. Alfa Romeo commissioned custom coachbuilder Nuccio
Bertone to design a small grand touring coupe. Upon his death
in 1997, the New York Times obituary pictured a white Sprint
like this and said that the Giulietta Sprint was Bertone's first
great success. The Giulietta series of cars began in 1954 with
the Sprint. A Pininfarina designed Spider (roadster) followed.
Other limited production sports models included the Sprint Speciale
and very rare Sprint Zagatos.
Sprint Coupes
The car pictured
is a Sprint Normal 101 series, the second series. For some reason,
known only to Alfa, the first series was designated 750. Normal
and Veloce models were available in Sprints and Spiders, the
Veloce's having performance modifications to the engine.
I bought and started restoration of
this car in 1983. Purchased from a gentleman in St. Louis, this
was his 16th Alfa. It is a close as I could find to the first
Alfa I owned in the 1960s - my first sports car. Much of the
time spent on this restoration was searching for parts. It went
into storage after completion and was taken out in the summer
of 2001. Since replacement parts sources were rare, Alfa Owner
Magazine became my best source of used parts. One of my best
sources became a musician in Seattle who had a virtual cache
of Giulietta parts in the basement of the apartment building
he lived in. The restoration took several years with body shop
changes and finally completed in 1986. The car was driven a few
years and then business interested prompted storage for almost
15 years. In 2001 it was taken from storage and with surprising
little effort brought back into running condition.
