First Ride, 1968 (Post # 10)

More backstory:
My first ride in the Alfatross was as a passenger.  It was not something to write home about.  To open the door I had to scrutinize the aluminum plate that was where a door handle would normal be, but this thing was flush with the door panel.  Pressing a recessed button at one end raised a lever handle at the other end that you had to pull to unlatch the door.  A mouldy smell wafted out to greet me.The slat-backed faux suede seats were rudimentary and uncomfortable looking.  In between the seats was a tall transmission tunnel topped with a very business-like short chrome gearshift lever.  There was some kind of thick, stained, wool carpeting on the floor, obviously not original equipment.  The aluminum doors closed with an un-reassuring tinny clap.  The crazed Plexiglas windows were practically opaque and the hand crank to wind them down felt unequal to the task.  You didn't need a sales brochure to tell you that the primary directive for the builders of this car was "Keep the weight down." 

The Bueg "Dynometer," some type of accelerometer. 

But the dashboard was gloriously studded with instruments, switches, and cloisonne badges for the Automobile Club Milano, Alfa Romeo Owners Club, and the Rally di Sanremo.  In the center of the dash was a Jaeger chronometer and a "dynometer" was slung under the dash in a special gimble.

The San Remo rally badge mounted on the dash:
evidence of a race history?

The Jaeger Chronometer.  Further evidence of
race history?

The exhaust system was shot, so normal conversation was impossible.  We bombed around on a twisting two-lane country road for an hour or so.   Surprisingly, the deep, but skimpy bucket seat became more comfortable.  I don't remember much about that first ride except that it was exhilarating  and disappointing at the same time.   

Blast from the Past (Post # 09)

A few days ago, in response to something I mentioned in a previous post, Peter Marshall sent me four photos of the Alfatross, apparently taken in 1965.  I have been corresponding with Peter in England  since 1981.  He is the go-to guy for reliable information about Alfa Romeo 1900s and has been an inspiration to many of us owners for the last 40 years.

The Alfatross in 1965.  Owner: Pat Braden.  Note peculiar icon painted on front
fender ahead of the door.

There can be no question that this is the Alfatross.  The giveaway is the icon on the front fender just in front of the door.  All other features also match.   The previous owner made a sketch of the icon before repainting the car to preserve a record of it in case it might be important later.  Thank you, Bo! 

These images show that a blog can be a powerful tool.  As a result of a previous postingI now have four photos of the Alfatross that were previously unknown to me.  The photos, shot with a Polaroid camera, are not of the best quality, but that is true of just about all photographs from that period.  Does anyone even remember Polaroid cameras now?   The scans Peter sent me are much clearer than what I can show here. 

Evidently Pat Braden, the owner, took these photos to show the car's condition to prospective buyers.  He was advertising it for sale in Road & Track magazine for $2,250!  It's value had been falling for 10 years--but it still hadn't hit rock bottom!

The Alfatross seen from the rear quarter in 1965. 

The photo of the rear quarter is probably the most important for me because it shows the presence of a rear bumper.  This was removed during the repaint and the holes in the body for its supports were filled in.  Until these photos arrived I always wondered if it had ever had a rear bumper.  Now I know!

The Alfatross interior in 1965.

The interior shot is important to me because it shows that the Jaeger chronometer and various badges are in place on the dash. That proves they were installed some time between 1955 and 1965 and not added later.  The interior is already looking shop-worn.  One of the previous owners must have installed the seat belts--they would not have been original equipment.  There is some kind of carpet on the floor and over the transmission tunnel--original?

The engine room.  Not much to see from this side.  The air cleaner
housing that covers the two dual downdraft Solex P II carbs
probably weighs 25 pounds!

The Rotisserie (Post # 08)

Time to get back to "current events."   I'll continue with the back-story later.

The bottom of a car is not a pretty sight. Especially after years of all-season daily use in inclement weather and the occasional oil leak or two. How do you get all that grunge off, and what is hiding underneath it? While it may be possible to get it off while lying on your back beneath the car with a scraper in one hand and a can of solvent in the other, take it from me, that gets old in a hurry.

A total restoration requires that the bottom of a car as well as the stripped interior and all the little nooks and crannies must be cleaned and inspected for hidden damage like rust spots on the steel chassis and electrolytic corrsion where the steel and aluminum come into contact with each other. A common practice to make this easier is to separate the chassis from the body and treat each individually. But the Alfatross's hand-made aluminum body could not be separated from its steel chassis without cutting it. So the only option is to treat the body and chassis at the same time on a rotisserie.

 Restorers often use a car rotisserie to take the aggravation out of this important, but often neglected aspect of a restoration. In the case of the Alfatross, we took a page from the playbook of the guys at the car museum in Phoenix who did something similar a few years ago. Instead of attaching the rotisserie to the car's frame, which is the standard practice, they fabricated two brackets inside the body and on top of the frame so they could pass an iron pipe straight through the car from the trunk opening to the grille opening. This resulted in much better balance and control of the car during rotation.  

After obtaining excellent engineering drawings of the brackets from Mr. Jean-Marc Freslon we set about making our own brackets for the Alfatross.  The brackets are pretty simple, but we needed fairly heavy wall material--have you checked out the price of steel these days?   They don't give it away, even scrap!




Dave measuring the shock tower bolt pattern spacing.



The front rotisserie shaft bracket in place temporarily before
final welding and bolting to the engine mounts.



Dave's rear rotisserie shaft bracket in place temporarily before
welding on the base plates and bolting them to the tops of
the shock towers.



Looking straight through the car from the trunk to the front grille
with the two 4 in. pipe sleeves in perfectalignment. The rotisserie
pipe shaft, supported by supports at either end, will run through
the sleeves allowing the body and chassis to rotate around it
for easy access to all surfaces inside and out.

We hope to have the Alfatross up on the rotisserie ready to start the cleaning and inspection phase by this time next week--but we're making this up as we go along, so who knows what we'll find? 

Romancing the Stone (Post # 07)

Cousin Bo was older, married, in Law School, and much more worldly-wise than I.  When he saw I was already infatuated with the car he started romancing the stone.  It was built for racing, he said, popping the hood to reveal the engine room.  I was astounded to see that it was hinged on its leading edge instead of the trailing edge.  Bo explained that this was a sophisticated European racing refinement: if the hood latch let go, the hood would stay closed, unlike the hoods on American cars that would fly back against the windshield and ruin your day.

The engine was small by American standards in the 1960s: just four cylinders and about 120 cubic inches  (1975 cc) displacement.  Under a massive air cleaner box on the intake side were two big dual downdraft Solex carburators and a writhing mass of tubular headers on the exhaust side.  In between were the two cast aluminum overhead cam covers.  A wide-mouthed shroud picked up cool air from outside the engine room and ducted it across the exhaust headers.  I noted the presence of two ignition coils, two fan belts driving the generator and water pump, and two air horns.

Engine room, driver's side.

So want to take it for a spin?  Bo asked, knowing I was already hooked. 

Thirty-two Years Earlier . . . . (Post # 06)

By 1981 I had owned the Alfatross for 12 years, during which time it had morphed in my consciousness from a hot date to an old friend in need of some serious TLC.  It was getting harder to remember what the original fascination was.

When I first laid eyes on it--and became infatuated the way only a teenager can--it was sitting forlornly in the parking lot of an apartment complex in Chapel Hill, home of the University of North Carolina. I had come to try to enroll and the only person I knew there was my older cousin Bo, who owned the car. But the car was what I saw first. It drew me with a kind of fatal attraction. It stood out from the familiar, drab, utilitarian assortment of student motor vehicles like a nugget of gold in a gravel bed--not that I knew what it was! I approached for a closer look.

It was Spartan in its appointments. No fancy chrome do-dads, emblems, or embellishments. It was painted a deep Italian racing red (not that I knew what that was either). The windows were strangely hazy.  I realized they weren't even glass, just some kind of transparent plastic. Through the driver's window I could see that the speedometer went up to 220!  (Only later did it occurr to me that the calibration was in KPH, not MPH, but that's still 132 mph!)  And the door handle was some kind of weird recessed contraption that didn't even look like a door handle. What the . . . .?   I didn't notice the defects, the chipped paint, the dirt, the crazed windows, the rusty wire wheels, or the fact that the dented rear end didn't even have a bumper. All I could see was that it was different in a way that didn't just appeal to me, it ate me up.

How many speedometers go up to 220?!

It wasn't love at first sight.  More like a fatal attraction!   

Every Project Needs a Plan to Deviate from (Post # 05)

How far along are we with this project after 43 years and how do we proceed?  It starts with a list. Actually a spreadsheet detailing the tasks to be performed (organized in categories), their priority, projected cost, who is going to do them, how long it will take, and deadline for completion.  Research is a big time-consumer.  Fortunately, the Alfatross was a very original "numbers matching" car when I bought it so I don't have to spend a lot of time figuring out fundamental things like what color it was painted, what the interior was like, how the battery was mounted, etc.  It even has the original ignition key!


Restored 72-spoke triple laced Borrani "Record" wire wheel
by Cork Adams, Precision Wheel 

Some of the "sub-assemblies" already finished include:

• Wire wheels
• Brake drums
• Brake master cylinder
• Brake cylinders
• Brake lines
• Brake shoes
• Front brake air scoops
• Instruments
• Suspension springs
• Shock absorbers
• Nardi steering wheel
• Generator
• Starter
• Electric fuel pump
• Wiring harness
• PlexiGlas windows
• Re-chroming
• Radiator replacement
• Fuel tank
• Differential



Restored wood-rimmed Nardi steering wheel
by Bruce Crawford, Hardwood Classics





7,000 RPM tach
by North Hollywood Speedometer


• Exhaust system

It sounds like a lot, but there is still a long way to go, including the most difficult, time-consuming, and expensive elements such as engine, body and interior.  The body and frame are the things we have to get started on right away because they are going to eat up a lot of hours and elbow grease!  I borrowed a car rotisserie from my son Dave so we can do a thorough job of cleaning and prepping the frame and body using Dave's soda blaster.  That should make for some dramatic photos later . . . .

But first we have to make special mounting brackets to skewer the Alfatross with an iron pipe, acting as an axle, passing all the way through the body from bow to stern entering from the trunk and exiting though the grille.  Should have some photos of this next week.

Just add Alfa . . .  Rotisserie frame in foreground, nervous
Alfatross in background.

Six Degrees of Separation . . . . (Post # 04)

 Before I go on  to the nuts and bolts aspects of car restoration I have to get something  else out of the way as soon as possible.  I hope that one of the constructive ways this blog can help me is with my search for the previous owners of the Alfatross.  Their input could be critical for the ongoing nuts and bolts work.  But where do you even start such a search? 

There used to be “six degrees of separation” between you and anyone else on the planet.  Now there are only two: you to the Internet and the Internet to whomever you’re separated from.  Case in point: I have the original license plates for the Alfatross.  In 1989 I contacted a guy in Italy who does plate traces and Bingo! He sent me a photocopy of the registration for the Alfatross when it was first purchased in 1955. 

The Alfatross's original license plated from 1955

It showed that Dr. Alessandro Costantini Brancadoro of San Benedetto del Tronto was the first owner.  I searched for Sr. Brancadoro on Google only to find his obituary, published in 2009.  Bummer.  If I had searched a few years earlier I might have been able to speak to him in person!  But all was not lost.  The obituary contained critical information that I could use to continue the search.  He was a famous heart surgeon and important community member of San Benedetto. 

I know you can't read this.  The original photocopy is dark
and the handwriting is very difficult to read anyway.

Here’s where the two degrees of separation comes in: I looked up the City Council of San Benedetto and wrote to the President, Sr. Marco Calvaresi on New Year’s Eve.  Two days later I got a reply.  It turns out that Sr. Calvaresi is a friend of Dr. Brancadoro’s grandson, Giuseppe, and he graciously supplied contact information.  I immediately wrote to him, asking if anyone in the family remembered the car.  Were there any photos of Dr. Brancadoro and his Alfa together? 

Giuseppe wrote back just as quickly to say that yes, he thought there are some photos of his grandfather and the Alfa.  He would look for them, scan them, and send them to me—if he can find them.  My fingers are crossed! 

So Dr. Costantini Brancadoro was the first owner.  The license plate trace also revealed that he sold the Alfatross to a Carl Joseph Michels in 1957.  Michels address was Jamaica, New York and he may have been in the US military.  After that the trail gets faint and it seems the car changed hands frequently.  I think the third owner was Will Henderson of Flint Michigan and the fourth was Paul Turner from the Chicago area.  I corresponded with the fifth owner, Pat Braden, now deceased, sporatically up to 2002.  He provided a wealth of information about the car's history.   If anyone out there knows Michels, Henderson, or Turner, please get in touch with me or leave a comment!