Niki Lauda For Sale

AlfaMale · #1 (**permalink**) 03-31-2004, 06:42 PM

Saw this '78 Niki Lauda for sale on eBay. The seller has an unlisted reserve. In one place he says he wants 10% down at the end of bidding and in another he asks for a $1,500.00. Am I to assume he thinks he will get $15,000.00 for this car? What is a realistic price for a Niki Lauda edition? My understanding is they were nothing more in reality than a decal option.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...tem=2470186440

164QV · #2 (**permalink**) 03-31-2004, 09:31 PM

Quote:

My understanding is they were nothing more in reality than a decal option.

rbitzer · #3 (**permalink**) 04-01-2004, 06:33 AM

I would just email the seller for clarification. And yes, the Nikki Lauda edition was basically just a spoiler kit (before the the S3 Spider existed), a dashboard plaque and the paint job.

Technically I guess they're kind of rare in original form but unless you're really into that look (& Nikki Lauda) I don't think I'd bother with it. Maybe it'd be a neat period restoration with that paint job redone....

cbtbbb · #4 (**permalink**) 03-28-2005, 07:51 PM

What items came on the car that make it different? I know the car had decals on the front and a plaque on the dash. Anything else? The reason I ask is I am looking at buying one. Will they be more collectible?

Craig

734 812 9675

**Roadtrip** · #5 (**permalink**) 03-28-2005, 09:05 PM

The thing that really sticks in my mind whenever someone brings the version up is this astonishing bad magazine ad that Alfa put out.

In my opinion, this version of the car was nothing but a cheap (very cheap) and transparent marketing ploy that just damaged the marque. It's hard to believe that Nikki Lauda agreed to it. Alfa must have paid him a ton of money.

The ad itself is breathtaking in it's repulsion. Here we have a famous F1 driver, whom we tend to think of as masculine and decisive, lounging limp-wristed with his leg seductively along the fender in a pair of pants that belong on a woman. In fact, when you look initially at the ad, you think it's a real ugly woman. Niki's hunched over, hollow chested, similing with buck-teeth, with his hands in his pockets, a frumpled baseball hat, and with a really really bad haircut (even by standards of the day).

Hopefully, what we don't see in the picture is someone just outside the field of view holding a knife to Niki's mother, forcing him to make this ad.

And what's he sitting on? A car that some nitwit stuck some really bad graphics on, plus a spoiler that destroys the lines of the bodywork (the fed bumpers did enough damage already).

Ugh. Not Alfa's finest hour.

**Farace** · #6 (**permalink**) 03-29-2005, 06:46 AM

Come on, John, stop pulling punches, tell us what you really think.

Count me as one of those that doesn't much like the decals. Perhaps if they'd included the Parmalat name as well. Then again, I've yet to see a Spider with added stripes of any sort that I like (including side scallops painted in a contrasting color). (I don't like the look of rub strips, either, although I'll acknowledge their benefit.)

Didn't the Chambers Brothers wear pants like that? At any rate, Niki looks like the guy at the gas station you don't really want to ask for the bathroom key.

**Alex Csank** · #7 (**permalink**) 03-29-2005, 07:21 PM

Aw, c'mon guys!! Back in the day, most of us dressed like that...or worse! And, even though I'll agree that just about everything about the car, the ad and Alfa at that time was pretty tasteless...it WAS the '70's!! The time of Disco, the Bee Gees, Donna Summer, the Mustang II, the Chevy Vega, etc, etc....

When that ad came out, I was riding a '69 Harley Sportster or a '70 VW Beetle (in the Winter), had stringy hair down to my armpits which I wore in Willie Nelson style pigtails, a Fu-Man-Chu moustache, and wore a series of T-Shirts that said things like "Disco Sucks!!", "F#*k Off", "Your Name Here" or some other witty '70's saying. Sheesh! When I think of all the silly clothes I wore, the nutty things I did...let's just say that I am surprised that I survived!

I bet that someday that Spider will be worth something more than the average mid-to-late Seventies rubber-bumpered Spider. But, I don't really think that it will ever be admired more than one of the truly beautiful versions, like a Roundtail or Stainless-bumpered Kammtail.

John...what were you wearing back then???

BKCowGod · #8 (**permalink**) 03-29-2005, 07:25 PM

I have many pictures of my parents dressed like Alex. My favorite is my dad's "Pasta Power" shirt, from the Mama Lina Pasta Company (anybody remember them from San Diego?)

I really want to remake that shirt with an alfa romeo logo

oh, and the Niki Lauda stripes are worse than the stripe kits on most other cars because they are on a beautiful car. On the AMC Hornet, they hid the nastiness. On this bad boy.........

**Farace** · #9 (**permalink**) 03-29-2005, 08:42 PM

Thanks, Alex, you reminded me of my old polyester double-knit shirts with the double row of contrasting stitching. Or my driver's ed instructor's lime-green polyester leisure suits. Big lapels. Gauze shirts. Studded denim. And ABBA. "Disco Duck." Leo Sayer. Welcome Back, Kotter and Love Boat. Seals and Crofts. The CB radio craze and "Convoy." Earth shoes and tan suede "desert boots" with crepe rubber soles. Household appliances in coppertone or avocado. WIN buttons (Whip Inflation Now). There was a good reason I never watched That 70s Show. Geez, now I'm not going to be able to sleep tonight. Thanks a lot, Alex.

(Should I admit I have an 8-track player and some Kiss tapes?)

**Roadtrip** · #10 (**permalink**) 03-29-2005, 09:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alex Csank

A
John...what were you wearing back then???

**Alex Csank** · #11 (**permalink**) 03-30-2005, 02:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roadtrip

A USAF uniform, 2nd Lt bars, a size 32 waist (vice 34 now), and about 30lbs less weight.

**Roadtrip** · #12 (**permalink**) 03-30-2005, 07:23 AM

Alex- Jeans, golf shirts, and rather worn Addidas sneakers. Heck, I'm still wearing that stuff! I did, however, in response to the Disco scene, have a couple of those synthetic silk-like print shirts with the oversize collars, polyester pants, and some short zip-up boots. Very cool!? The danger was walking too close to an ignition source, lest you turn into a roman candle.

I didn't shop for vertically striped slacks in the women's department, wear Birkenstock clogs, or grow an "afro."

**Alex Csank** · #13 (**permalink**) 03-30-2005, 07:37 AM

Geez, John!!! Do you HAVE nothing to be embarrassed about regarding your dress or behavior in the 70's?!?!?!

I'm pretty sure that most of the rest of us do!

Were you the only guy with taste?

Oh, and by the way...in the big cities anyway...you didn't need to shop in the women's section to get those really atrocious-looking striped slacks! In fact, you could buy a great pair of orange, cream and black leather platform boots, some lime-green and yellow striped polyester double-knit slacks, a matching cream and orange belt, a really wide tie that looked like someone's regurgitated stew (or even better...how about an apache scarf?) and a pretty neat looking skin-tight multi-colored abstract print shirt to totally clash with everything else at just about any good men's clothing store!

Of course, maybe where you were...they didn't have that stuff at the local AF Exchange?

164QV · #14 (**permalink**) 03-30-2005, 08:05 AM

Do you think Niki had bad taste?! Now waddaya think about this funky dude?

**Farace** · #15 (**permalink**) 03-30-2005, 08:15 AM

Yikes, that looks like one of the guys from Three Dog Night hanging out with one of the girls from ABBA. Or maybe Uriah Heep.

I just remembered my driver ed. teacher had Conway Twitty hair.

I fear that someday my son will find my high school yearbook (1978) and say "Dad, who is this guy with the same name as you? What a dork!"

The Cool Guys in my school had Pontiac Firebirds (in baby blue even) with the giant bird on the hood, or customized Ford vans (complete with airbrushed "art" on the side, usually something mythological, like unicorns). The gearheads (we called them "torques") had bleach dispensers at the rear wheels.