[iicarJohn]

I have not researched his earlier "Woestman" cars, but I have a note in my computer that there was a photo of two "Woestman Special" cars in Speed Age (magazine) for September, 1947. Neither of these cars were Alfa Romeo powered and any pre-war Woestman racer was also not Alfa powered.

I have researched the Woestman Alfa Romeo a bit and a friend, Gordon Barrett, has also shared what he learned when he went in search of the engine that he thought might still be waiting to be found. As it turned out, the engine had already been found, except ... there was more than one engine! Not only do I not know all the story, some of it is not mine to tell but I can share a bit of info and additional mystery.

The Alfa Romeo 8C powered "Woestman Special" was a tubular chassis car built by Harry Lewis in 1950 for Walt Woestman. Woestman apparently started to have some health problems during the construction and he offered the car for sale before it was completed. It did not sell and was finally finished during 1952. Still suffering from health issues in 1952, Woestman offered one of his earlier "Woestman" cars as well as this car with a "damaged engine" along with a spare engine that could have been had separately. Once again, the car did not sell and the Alfa-powered "Woestman Special" was raced a few times at Pikes Peak in the 1950's by Charlie Bryant (1952 & 1953), Jimmy Good (1954 & 1956) and George Hammond (1957). It used an engine that Woestman said was "the best of five engines" to have been offered from the Don Lee collection. As it turns out, the special may have used more than one engine.

Additional ads appeared early 1955 in both Road & Track and Car Life magazines but there is no mention of a second engine at this time. At least one engine was sold around 1958 to George Weaver who was the 1950's owner in fairly quick succession of two different Tipo B racing cars. N. 50004 was without engine when he got it and he fitted a Ford ... and then he purchased N. 50001 out of England, also without engine. It is not clear to me if he owned both cars for a while in an overlapping time period but maybe Simon Moore's new book (well-along but not quite completed) will tell us about that? It seems that Weaver may have acquired engine N 50004 from Woestman as this is the engine that was in 50001 when it was sold on ... and (as an aside) which was still in it when I got to do a good portion of the restoration in 1984 & 1985. The mechanicals were done by Reilly & Co. and major body work was by Jack Hagemann so I certainly did not do it all but it was a delightful car to spend a lot of time with.

Returning to earlier times: Note that the engine N. 50004 would have made Weaver's previous Tipo B "numbers matching" but it had already been sold on with the Ford engine fitted. Furthermore, almost nobody cared about "matching numbers". Most wouldn't even have noticed.

There were some parts with Barbara Weaver after George's death that clearly came from other cars, including the ID plate for the 8C2900 engine N. 412007, now returned to its original car thanks to Gordon Barrett's efforts. But, for much of this stuff that we can identify later on, we cannot be 100% sure of which pieces came from whom or where, so it is not possible to be too precise about what actually happened. It could be that Woestman had the engine N. 412007 at some point or it may be that he had only the ID plate or it may be that Weaver got that ID plate from elsewhere, with or without the engine or any part of one? Theories can be formulated that explain where both of Woestman's engines are today. There are some implications in the wording of Woestman's ads but again, we can't be absolutely sure of much of anything. In fact, I could have made an incorrect assumption early on, or may have chosen to believe someone else's assumption that was voiced as "fact" and the subsequent mind-set might make a lot of what I believe somewhat inaccurate. It would not be the first time, I'm afraid!

I don't have any photos handy in the computer but will make an effort to dig up a couple of things to scan for another posting on another day.

Despite all the other mystery remaining I am quite certain that the eBay item that started out this thread has a name-only link to the Alfa Romeo powered "Woestman" car. Perhaps more importantly, it was not a 308 or any other kind of true Alfa Romeo. Still, the Alfa-powered "Woestman Special" is a fascinating spin-off that is a great example of a lengthy historical "moment" that continues to present us with lots of mystery even when some background has been explained to some degree.

John de Boer
The Italian Car Registry