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.
