A Fine Little Italian Roadster
Now for something red from Italy that's not pizza sauce or a Ferrari, but a lovely and fun little Italian roadster. Throughout the post war fifties Alfa Romeo was producing mostly sedans, and from an excitement point of view few were a match for their prewar cars. Those cars were fast, excellent handling cars built with racing in mind, and they did that quite well! But, the fifties sedans were good family cars and Alfa produced enough of them to keep the postwar doors open. And when it came to excitement, or lack of, all that was about to change in 1959 when Alfa introduced the 2000 Spider, custom bodied by Touring of Milan. The cars were beautiful to look at, true two seater sports cars, with a 2 liter, twin overhead cams 4 cylinder motor, equipt with twin carburetors, and rated at 113hp (in doing the research I've seen ratings at 115hp, and also 130hp?? so you decide! It may have to do with the difference between the US models and the European models, but that was never stated)
Regardless of which was correct, it's obvious that they weren't going to be asphalt scorchers, and that's too bad because the car is gorgeous, and deserves a little more muscle under the hood to go with it's good looks. They came standard with oversized drum brakes and an all synchromesh 5 speed transmission. But, in spite of a somewhat anemic powerplant, I'm sure they were fun cars to drive and also handled well. We also have to remember that this was 1959, and even the 1959 Porsche speedster wasn't exactly a screamer! But then there was the cost of this lovely little Italian roadster. At a little over $5700 dollars in '59, it wasn't cheap, and back then that was a lot of money! And that alone would be enough to keep the total number of units coming out of the factory down. Now consider the 1959 Corvette, also a two seater, and surely available in red, powered by a 283ci, 4.7L motor with ratings up to 290hp, and with an MSRP of around $3800 dollars, and nearly a $2000 dollar difference, hmm, let me think, what would I buy?? Yeah, maybe it didn't have the panache of an Italian roadster in red, but $2000 dollars in your pocket would buy a lot of Sunoco 260! Today, a beautifully restored 1959 Alfa 2000 Spider might sell for around $130,000 dollars at auction, and from what I've seen, they have. And I think the right 1959, well equipt Corvette, in equally excellent condition would probably garner the same paycheck for the seller.
Vince
A Fine Little Italian Roadster
Now for something red from Italy that's not pizza sauce or a Ferrari, but a lovely and fun little Italian roadster. Throughout the post war fifties Alfa Romeo was producing mostly sedans, and from an excitement point of view few were a match for their prewar cars. Those cars were fast, excellent handling cars built with racing in mind, and they did that quite well! But, the fifties sedans were good family cars and Alfa produced enough of them to keep the postwar doors open. And when it came to excitement, or lack of, all that was about to change in 1959 when Alfa introduced the 2000 Spider, custom bodied by Touring of Milan. The cars were beautiful to look at, true two seater sports cars, with a 2 liter, twin overhead cams 4 cylinder motor, equipt with twin carburetors, and rated at 113hp (in doing the research I've seen ratings at 115hp, and also 130hp?? so you decide! It may have to do with the difference between the US models and the European models, but that was never stated)
Regardless of which was correct, it's obvious that they weren't going to be asphalt scorchers, and that's too bad because the car is gorgeous, and deserves a little more muscle under the hood to go with it's good looks. They came standard with oversized drum brakes and an all synchromesh 5 speed transmission. But, in spite of a somewhat anemic powerplant, I'm sure they were fun cars to drive and also handled well. We also have to remember that this was 1959, and even the 1959 Porsche speedster wasn't exactly a screamer! But then there was the cost of this lovely little Italian roadster. At a little over $5700 dollars in '59, it wasn't cheap, and back then that was a lot of money! And that alone would be enough to keep the total number of units coming out of the factory down. Now consider the 1959 Corvette, also a two seater, and surely available in red, powered by a 283ci, 4.7L motor with ratings up to 290hp, and with an MSRP of around $3800 dollars, and nearly a $2000 dollar difference, hmm, let me think, what would I buy?? Yeah, maybe it didn't have the panache of an Italian roadster in red, but $2000 dollars in your pocket would buy a lot of Sunoco 260! Today, a beautifully restored 1959 Alfa 2000 Spider might sell for around $130,000 dollars at auction, and from what I've seen, they have. And I think the right 1959, well equipt Corvette, in equally excellent condition would probably garner the same paycheck for the seller.
Vince