The five Carrozzeria Touring berlinettas
As described above, the first of these stunning designs was ready for the major motor shows at the end of 1937 and early 1938 in Paris, Milan and Berlin. Four more were built with consecutive Touring body numbers on chassis numbers 412024, 412029, 412035 and 412036 - the gap between the third and the fourth being the works sports-racing cars of 1938.
412020 was sold in Germany before the war, exported to the USA in the 1950s, was fitted for a while with an unsupercharged 6C2500 engine, restored in the UK by Tony Merrick with the correct engine and recently was re-restored by RX in Vancouver for new owner David Sydorick, winning the first prize "Best in Show" at the 2018 Pebble Beach concours.
Unfortunately we do not know the identity of the first owner of 412024 but that is discussed below. The first owner of 412029 was an Italian gentleman who registered the car in August 1938. That car was exported to Switzerland after the war where its correct engine was removed being replaced by a Studebaker unit. It was rescued in the early 1960s by the late Cav Luigi Fusi from a used car lot and is now on display at the Alfa Romeo museum at Arese outside Milan.
412035 was first registered to a company in Milan in July 1938 and was, like 412029, exported to Switzerland just after the war. However it moved quickly to the USA where Frank Griswold used it to win the first ever race round the streets of Watkins Glen in 1947. In the early 1980s it passed to long time owner David Cohen and then twenty years later to Jon Shirley of Seattle. He had the car restored by Butch Dennison's company in the Seattle area and the car and won overall first prize "Best of Show" at the 2008 Pebble Beach concours. The car subsequently also won top prizes at Chantilly, Windsor Castle and Villa d'Este.
The last of the berlinettas was shown at the 1938 Paris Salon between the 6th and 16th October. After its return to Italy it was sold to a gentleman in Milan in November. After seven months he sold it on to someone in the Brescia area and, in 1947, it ended up with Emilio Romano, the local Alfa Romeo agent. He entered that year's Mille Miglia but had to remove the superchargers and run un-supercharged due to the regulations. He recruited 1938 winner Clemente Biondetti as his co-driver and they won the race. Subsequently the car went to Argentina with both unblown and supercharger set ups, then to the USA, Japan and the UK before being acquired by Miles Collier for his collection in Naples, Florida. The car was fully restored by RX in Vancouver and was shown at Pebble Beach in 2006 where it won multiple awards although missing out on "Best of Show".
The differences between the cars
There are subtle differences between the cars as described in the table here. In addition, the first car, 412020 had a steeper rake to the angle of the radiator grille than the other cars.
The next car, 412024, has a smaller windscreen than the other cars - there is clearly more metal between the top of the screen and the roofline than on all the others.
We have no photographs of 412029 before the war but at some point in its life, it gained a fabric sliding roof.
412035 has slightly longer running boards than 412024, extending right back to the leading edge of the rear wing and very distinctive louvres on the side that extend into the scuttle behind the bonnet.
The last Berlinetta 412036 had similar running boards to 412035; none of the period photographs show a Touring badge but it is probable that it did have one originally.
The history of 412024
Unfortunately we have no knowledge of the first owner of this car. Since 412029 was registered in August 1938 and 412035 in July of that year, it is fair to assume that it was completed in the first half of 1938. With so few 8C2900s built, it would surely have found an owner immediately, despite the high price! We do know that the car had a large chrome "I" on the driver's side rear wing when it was in England so it seems certain that it had an Italian owner from new. Since it was imported into the UK in February 1939, it also seems probable that it was this car that was weighed at Alfa Romeo in early January as per a sheet of comparative weights of cars retained by Alfa Romeo. Intriguingly, what seems to have been a different car was weighed the next day (showing a heavier car than the Berlinetta so probably a long chassis spider) and that was owned by Countess Ciano, the wife of the Italian foreign minister and Mussolini's daughter. He was always said to have given a spider to a senior official in Germany (chassis number 412021) but could easily have owned 412024 ahead of the car being exported to England soon after the weighing took place.
Registration records for Milan, Modena and Como have been investigated comprehensively so 412024 was not registered in any of those three cities. Count Ciano was born in Livorno (and gave his name to a series of races there) but was surely residing in Rome as Foreign Minister - so any car he or his wife owned would not have been registered in any of those three locations. It should also be noted that senior government officials rarely used the normal system of registration number plates in Rome at that time.
After 412024 arrived in the UK, it was registered FLR 108 on 16 March 1939, painted blue. It was immediately advertised for sale by Alfa dealer, Jack Bartlett in London in the April 1939 issue of Speed when the car had apparently done only 5,000 miles. I am not sure if the car was sold at that point nor where it spent the war years. A replacement or continuation buff-coloured log-book has as its first entry the name of Jack Bartlett with a date of 10 June 1947, although it was apparently not licensed for the road again until 3 June 1948. It seems unlikely, although possible, that the car had been traded enough to justify having a continuation log book after eight owners; it would make more sense that the original was lost or damaged and Bartlett was registering the car in his name either because he still owned it (having failed to sell it) or a previous owner had lost it. Around this time the log book records a change of colour to silver.
Bartlett won one of the ten prizes at the concours at the RAC summer party at Woodcote Park in July 1947. He then participated in the RAC Jubilee celebrations at the same location outside London on 6 September 1947. In the concours held in London's Regents Park on the same day as part of those celebrations, Bartlett won the class for closed cars built between 1931 and 1940 with a taxable HP of over 16.
The car was then pictured in Motor for 14 July 1948 after Bartlett had won a first in class at the Eastbourne concours (for cars registered between 1934 and 1940 and over 16 taxable HP). He advertised it for sale again on 27 July 1949 in the weekly press when he described it as having only a small mileage. In Motor for 3 August 1949 Bunny Tubbs wrote some road impressions of three Alfas, namely an 8C2300 coupe (2211053), a post war 6C2500 coupe and 412024. The photos taken that day are shown here and the story from Motor reproduced as an Appendix.
After the Motor story appeared, the car was sold on 28 October 1949 to Dennis de Ferranti. In a letter of 12 November 1971 he recalled that the car was silver with "fawn suede" upholstery. He had the car for a year before he bought a Touring spider (412026); he kept the coupe for another year and licensed it for the road all the time before he sold it back to Jack Bartlett on 28 November 1951. He in turn sold it on to Lord Ridley on 28 December 1951. All visitors recall that the car was silver during Lord Ridley's ownership. Surviving documentation from Lord Ridley indicates that the car had done just under 29,000 Kms when he got it. He then fitted a different speedometer which showed another 16,000 miles or so in his ownership.
On Lord Ridley's death in the mid 1960s, the car was sold to Nigel Mann who was living in the South of France; the car was last registered in the UK in 1964. I am not sure exactly when but the log book also records a further change of colour to red, presumably in Nigel Mann's ownership.
Mann advertised the car for sale in the summer of 1970 in the French magazine L'Anthologie de l'Automobile; his reply to an enquiry included the following:- "I am getting offers here around £3,750 (in France) but am waiting for £4,000. The problem is space in my museum". It seems that the car went unsold at that time but was finally sold to Jan Martens in Holland in 1976.
The current owner recalls that purchase "When I collected the car from his little chateau (near Chartres, I believe), I picked up an English friend from Paris, Dick Sommerin, who did some work for the museum at Beaulieu. My problem was, he turned up at the rendez-vous point, but only at 1.30 AM. We had a blowout on the single-axle trailer in the middle of the night near Liege and only by stepping full on the throttle of the Jag, I managed not to lose the total combination. After that, it turned out I didn't carry a spare for the trailer and had to leave the trailer with the Alfa still on it, by the wayside. We managed to find a new spare tyre early morning in Liege and were very afraid someone had nicked the Alfa in the meantime, but luckily nothing had happened! Quite an eventful trip that was!"
Over the years, some work has been done to the car including a 1980s engine rebuild by Tony Merrick but it has been maintained as a good runner and never subjected to a "ground up" restoration. Since 1976, the car has covered around 12,500 Kms including rallying, some racing and track days at Zandvoort.
Simon Moore