Hi Bruce,
Here is a copy and paste from the Province.
Hey Lanny! Your name is in here somewhere!
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Alfa Romeo back from the junkyard
Only five built by Italian automaker
Nigel Matthews, Special to the Province
Published: Friday, April 21, 2006
Storied Italian sports-car maker Alfa Romeo built just five 8C-2900 Type B Berlinetta Coupes in 1938.
And two of the powerful eight-cylinder 2,900-cc cars with a significant racing history have had strong B.C. connections . . . until very recently.
As an Alfisti (Alfa nut), I recount that fact with sadness, but as an insurance specialist who would have undoubtedly been involved if, heaven forbid, either of these two cars was involved in any kind of an accident or claim, I am very relieved on behalf of ICBC policy holders!
Ian Davey and Mike Taylor, partners in the renowned RX Autoworks of North Vancouver recently kissed goodbye to both cars after doing some incredible restoration work.
First, some history so you can fully appreciate the pedigree of the magnificent specimens the local company was charged with restoring.
The first of the two cars produced (Alfa chassis #412035) has the longer association with this province having spent the last 14 years here.
One of its early owners was Alfa Romeo's U.S. agent Frank Griswold who raced it in 1948 to its first victory in the Seneca Cup, the race that was to become the U.S. Grand Prix.
Seven owners later, a South African bought it in the early 1980s and shipped it to restoration specialist Tony Merrik in England. In 1991, the owner moved here and showed it many times at local shows.
Its slightly younger sibling, in purely manufacturing terms, (Alfa chassis #412036) had a relatively brief brush with B.C. However, it actually enjoyed racing success a year earlier than the Vancouver car.
This Berlinetta was the 1938 Paris Salon show car. Having survived the war, stashed away safely on an estate, it was time for a new home.
Second owner Emilio Romano, entered the car in the 1947 Mille Miglia race (thousand miles) in Italy, with teammate Clemente Biodetti, who had won the race in 1938 in an Alfa Romeo.
Modifications were required as this was a twin-supercharged car and superchargers had been outlawed for the race (they just kept winning). With the help of the factory, the car was fitted with four Weber carburetors. Despite very tough competition, it went on to win the race.
In 1948, the car left Italy and ended up in Argentina, where it raced for a little longer in the hands of two different owners. After a crash it ended up in a scrapyard, where a couple of junkyard dogs made it their expensive kennel!
Lucio Ballaert heard the story -- largely dismissed as a myth -- tracked it down and purchased it for just $2,000 in 1966.
In 2000, the car was offered for sale at the Brooks auction in Carmel, Calif., where a Floridian collector paid in excess of $4 million. The two cars were reunited in early 2004 at RX Autoworks.
RX is the only restoration facility that I am aware of in B.C. that can perform a turnkey restoration completely in-house.
The craftsmen at this shop just six blocks from my office are no strangers to turning out Pebble Beach winners. They have turned out two class winners and a
third in class, essentially the equivalent of two Olympic silvers and a bronze.
The present owner of the second car is only interested in 100-per-cent correctness. It has to be this way if it is going to be a Pebble Beach winner or share some space in his museum filled with his other masterpieces of automotive history.
RX stripped the car of every single nut, bolt, mechanical component, body panel, glass and piece of upholstery. Get the picture?
Taylor explained how they used the first car to help ensure their work remained faithful to the original factory car.
\"The items on the Florida car that required rectification or refabricating, were removed from the first car, documented, disassembled, measured and photographed one piece at a time.
\"The door handles are a perfect example . . . The ones fitted to the second car when it arrived in our shop were completely wrong. I had to copy the original design and fabricate new ones from scratch.\"
Unfortunately, half way through the project in the summer of 2005, a new custodian bought their \"modelling\" car and it now shares garage space with other fine Italian cars in the Seattle area. Without their research and resource material parked side by side, the task of restoring the Florida car became even more challenging.
The list of rectifications is too long to quote. Here are just a few of the tasks performed: New grille fabricated, sourcing and refitting the missing driving lamps, contouring the fenders and giving them back their flowing form and shapes, assembling a new wiring harness, fabricating new bumpers, fluid reservoirs, and rebuilding the entire floor and chassis behind the seats.
However, assisting Davey and Taylor is an incredible team -- Rob Fram (master mechanic), Dave Gallagher (upholsterer), and Lanny Hussey (paint refinishing), not to mention the long list of friends and family who all pitched in delivering food and doing anything that could be done to help.
The task of meeting the deadline towards the end of this mammoth undertaking was incredible. I visited the shop the day before the car was due to leave for Florida -- it had no hood, running boards, interior seats, and the engine had not been started as the fluids were being added to various reservoirs.
It seemed impossible that it would make the departure deadline of the next afternoon. The next day was Wednesday and it was mandatory --no ifs ands or buts -- it had to be in Florida by Saturday evening.
Well, they made it and all in one piece. Three drivers, Mike, Rob and Duncan Dickinson took turns at the wheel of a five-ton panel truck driving non-stop for 64 hours, with the precious cargo in the back.
n Much of the historical information here came from Simon Moore's book, The Immortal 2.9, published by Parkside Publications.
Nigel Matthews is the appraiser of vintage and collector cars for the Insurance Corp. of B.C.
