ala spessa 915096??

[dretceterini]

We know from various sources that 915006 and 915009 had Ala Spessa coachwork. The car that I'm most interested in John's list is 915024/923830; a Corsa Tipo Mille Miglia spider Touring Targa Abruzzo. What coachwork was on this car? 915096, the car we have been talking about is in John's list as chiusa, or "closed car", meaning it was originally a coupe.

[dretceterini]

Quote:

Originally Posted by 6ccorsa There are just 2 in the photos of the start (in Anselmi p227) for Pintacuda (2) & Leonardi (6). Does anyone know about the car no.16 described as the 'hybrid Alfa Romeo 2500 of Cortese'? It may be in the text but my Italian is pretty weak and I haven't worked my way right through it yet.

[gtv2000]

Quote:

Originally Posted by iicarJohn "Thick wing" is another good (and more literal) translation but I will stand by my original interpretations, gained from listening to popular usage in Italy ... which, as with English, is most certainly evolving ... so we may be only able to guess at the original intended allusion of "Ala Spessa". Regardless, the imprecise nature of such a moniker might foster a bit of misuse? And also inspire additional questions. Was it an official name used at the time of building and use or has it become popularized after the fact? The answer to that question might just lead us back to a simpler and more generic "6C Corsa" or "256SS" (or some variation) moniker as being more historically correct?

[dretceterini]

As Patrick noted in another thread when he posted the same article (or maybe it was posted on the Atlas nostalgia forum; I'm old and don't remember ), the car that looks like the 8c2900B but squarer is NOT one of the 6c2500/Tipo 256 Corsas. It is one of the (2, 3 or 4, depending on what source you check) Tipo 412s (8c2900A chassis with 12c 37 motor). Note the twin exhausts at the rear...otherwise, the nine of 19 6c2500/Tipo 256s are virtually identical looking.

I believe the lower hp figure of 107 for the pre-war 3 carb carb 6c2500/Tipo 256s is closer to correct than the 125-135 quoted in some sources. I believe the higher hp figures applies to the post-war 3 carb race cars.

[gtv2000]

Quote:

Originally Posted by iicarJohn I was in Italy at the time that Anselmi's diatribe came out against the AR6C cars that were appearing on the scene. I met with him (and others) shortly therafter. I've always had the impression that he would not have been nearly so offended had the various "copycat" builders done a better job of their works. But, by the time three or four cars were noted to be quite "wrong" in many aspects, the others that may not have been be so "bad" became equally guilty in a "guilt-by-association" sense. Although some feel he was over-reacting, and I feel that there was something of a longterm dis-service done by resorting to the use of single-word decriptors such as "false", Anselmi did us a real service by calling public attention to something that was truly getting out of hand. However, this has not stopped it from happening throughout the car-restoration and car-building world and not just on Alfa Romeo 6C chassis.

[dretceterini]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gtv2000 I think that the car featured in Stu's link above would qualify for Anselmi's angry reaction, albeit not one targeted then, as it's a caricature of what it's supposed to represent: I'm among those thinking that it is a cultural "dis-service". Another example: Currently for sale in Belgium, no need to say where exactly . I saw the car in the metal when with a previous owner and, er, it's really ugly. Yet it was featured some years ago on a large wallpaper on sale. There was one framed in my Alfa dealer's showroom. That's what I mean with "cultural dis-service", since ignorant modern Alfa owners may have thought Alfa and Touring once built "suuch things".

[gtv2000]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dretceterini The upper car looks "reasonably accurate" to me, but without checking, I think Patrick is correct and no 6c2500/Tipo 256s with that style coachwork still exist.

[iicarJohn]

Franco Cortese drove a number of cars, but his own primary race car in 1938 and 1939 was 6C2300 N. 815001 fitted with one of the first 2500 Corsa (256) engines. It was quite likely a semi-official (almost-works) effort. There is a chance that it was a fully supported works car with Cortese's "ownership" a mere screen? He pretty much won almost every race he finished with it in 1938 and was Italian class champion that year as a result. The racing body was changed at least once during Cortese's ownership with the second body seeming (to my eyes) slightly "older" styling-wise than the first.

Interestingly, the 256 engine change was not recorded bureaucratically (for tax purposes) until February of 1946, by which time the car had been rebodied (rebody 1941?) by Pinin Farina. In 1947 or thereabouts, it went to Egypt and later to England, by which time it had apparently lost its 256 engine. The Pinin Farina body was removed and the rebody became one of the cars that incurred Anselmi's displeasure noted earlier in this thread. It has since been redone yet again, supposedly giving up its incorrect body to yet another car and the current body seems fairly correct, at least to other observers. Although I have not seen it in person, I don't know of anyone who should care more than the owner to have "gotten it right".

The Pinin Farina body, interesting in its own right, also still exists at least in part, having been sold out of the UK, but I don't know if it has been placed on another chassis as yet. I would very much like to learn the Pinin Farina body number that should be found on at least some of its parts.

Part of the potential conceptual problem with all of this is that there are now three cars that may exist to hold bodywork off the ground when there was only one car originally. This means that there are two otherwise "spare" engines (and all the rest, two gearboxes, two back axle units, four front suspension units, 10 wheels, etc) that are no longer part of the spares that could help keep other cars on the road with "genuine" Alfa Romeo parts rather than newly made approximations. The trend of using parts to build cars has made those original parts more costly than they otherwise "should be" as mere "spares". This is perhaps "tough luck" for owners of cars needing parts and major components, but is perhaps not a real problem? The upside might be that, when a part is made, perhaps there is more of an incentive to make a small production run of it rather than make the occasional one-of?

[gtv2000]

I’ve been checking the pictures of the 1939 races where « Ala spessas » were entered, i.e. Tobrouk-Tripoli, Circuito dell’Impero, Targa Abruzzo and the 1940 “MM”. No doubt there were only two Ala Spessas at Pescara, but I found why I had that picture in mind in relation to a third car. After a deeper research, it seems that there’s no such third car. The puzzling point on the Targa start picture is that Leonardi’s Ala Spessa (#6), of lighter shade (looks like light grey or silver on B/W pics), has a completely different front end: embossed headlights like some other Touring coupes and cabrios, instead of the peculiar half-protruding ones with their typical eyebrows. The brake cooling air vents under the headlights are also very different, strangely enough for a hot race, the look smaller.

Since the famous picture with the full team of 4 2500s in front of the Alfa Corse new building, before the Tobrouk race, shows two identical Ala Spessas for Boratto (under his own name, hence registered Roma47829 instead of MI49904 for the second Ala Spessa) and Farina, I had thought Leonardi’s car to be a third one. Now, checking closer, it’s not so sure. Anselmi (p. 224) states that Leonardi’s car at the Circuito dell’Impero (June 11th) is Boratto’s Tobrouk car. At the Circuito, the pics show beyond doubt that it is still in original form, with the “eyebrows” and the seemingly two tones of red. If the car was Boratto’s property, and was sold after Tobrouk to Leonardi, there’s little chance for a swap that might have occurred if all the cars had been kept under Alfa Corse ownership. We have thus to assume that for some reason Leonardi had the car modified at Touring between June 11th and August 15th, which is possible but a bit strange. Leonardi is not reported as having damaged his car at the Circuito, where he finished 5th. Unfortunately, on neither of those venues has the car a fron reg plate, so no confirmation of the Roma number is to be found. The Italian Registration archives (PRA) could possibly give the information upon researching Roma47829.

It all fits with the other Ala Spessa (915009) having been the experimental fuel injected MM car in 1940, still in original form. This is confirmed with the MI49904 registration to be read both on Pintacuda’s car at Pescara 1939 and on the injected one at the MM.

At least one Ala Spessa raced postwar, as documented in the Touring Superleggera book p.186 (circuito di Luino August 4th 1946). I’m pretty sure I have seen further pics of such cars in immediate postcard races, but I didn’t find this evening. I thought in a Moore book, but despite the detailed index, I haven’t traced down my vague recollection.

It may be added that, while stating clearly “two cars” in the 2500 book, Anselmi, a few years earlier wrote “two or three” in the Superleggera book.
Last note from today’s digging, as early as March 1939, when presenting the new race car that won at Tripoli, Alfa Corse called it “6C2500SS-Tipo 256”. Both names were thus in use then – or should we conclude that it’s its full name 

[dretceterini]

Quote:

Originally Posted by iicarJohn Franco Cortese drove a number of cars, but his own primary race car in 1938 and 1939 was 6C2300 N. 815001 fitted with one of the first 2500 Corsa (256) engines. It was quite likely a semi-official (almost-works) effort. There is a chance that it was a fully supported works car with Cortese's "ownership" a mere screen? He pretty much won almost every race he finished with it in 1938 and was Italian class champion that year as a result. The racing body was changed at least once during Cortese's ownership with the second body seeming (to my eyes) slightly "older" styling-wise than the first. Interestingly, the 256 engine change was not recorded bureaucratically (for tax purposes) until February of 1946, by which time the car had been rebodied (rebody 1941?) by Pinin Farina. In 1947 or thereabouts, it went to Egypt and later to England, by which time it had apparently lost its 256 engine. The Pinin Farina body was removed and the rebody became one of the cars that incurred Anselmi's displeasure noted earlier in this thread. It has since been redone yet again, supposedly giving up its incorrect body to yet another car and the current body seems fairly correct, at least to other observers. Although I have not seen it in person, I don't know of anyone who should care more than the owner to have "gotten it right". The Pinin Farina body, interesting in its own right, also still exists at least in part, having been sold out of the UK, but I don't know if it has been placed on another chassis as yet. I would very much like to learn the Pinin Farina body number that should be found on at least some of its parts. Part of the potential conceptual problem with all of this is that there are now three cars that may exist to hold bodywork off the ground when there was only one car originally. This means that there are two otherwise "spare" engines (and all the rest, two gearboxes, two back axle units, four front suspension units, 10 wheels, etc) that are no longer part of the spares that could help keep other cars on the road with "genuine" Alfa Romeo parts rather than newly made approximations. The trend of using parts to build cars has made those original parts more costly than they otherwise "should be" as mere "spares". This is perhaps "tough luck" for owners of cars needing parts and major components, but is perhaps not a real problem? The upside might be that, when a part is made, perhaps there is more of an incentive to make a small production run of it rather than make the occasional one-of?

[dretceterini]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gtv2000 Hey, Stu, buy yourself a pair of glasses , and compare what you see there with a pic of the real car. Grille way too vertical, hood line too high, seems too wide, odd doors and rear wing cut, ...

[dretceterini]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gtv2000 Not "him", "a friend of him". It's based on a 6C2300 chassis with a 2500 engine. I don't know who crafted the body, and I'm not sure I want to know , but it's years old.

[dretceterini]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gtv2000 I’ve been checking the pictures of the 1939 races where « Ala spessas » were entered, i.e. Tobrouk-Tripoli, Circuito dell’Impero, Targa Abruzzo and the 1940 “MM”. No doubt there were only two Ala Spessas at Pescara, but I found why I had that picture in mind in relation to a third car. After a deeper research, it seems that there’s no such third car. The puzzling point on the Targa start picture is that Leonardi’s Ala Spessa (#6), of lighter shade (looks like light grey or silver on B/W pics), has a completely different front end: embossed headlights like some other Touring coupes and cabrios, instead of the peculiar half-protruding ones with their typical eyebrows. The brake cooling air vents under the headlights are also very different, strangely enough for a hot race, they look smaller.

[iicarJohn]

Warning! It is possible to get caught up in too much minutiae!

My apologies. There are implications in the wording of my earlier posting about 815001 that were not intended. I do not believe that 815001 was born as a 2500cc or "256" engined car. It was most likely a 2300MM in its earliest days and perhaps even throughout 1938.(?) It was said to be a "2500" for an event or two in 1939. But, even that kind of reference might not be wholly accurate, or at least, we should not assume that such a reference was necessarily accurate at a time when Alfa Romeo was perhaps promoting a new specification. It is probably not too soon for "MARKETING" to have raised its ugly head!?!

Given the 1939 references to "2500" associated with 815001, and then the 1946 declaration of the conversion to "256/2T" engine, I cannot help but feel that the 1946 declaration was making an earlier conversion official in a belated postwar context. But, there is also the small chance that the car was converted to "256" engine in 1946 rather than sometime earlier.

Regarding the queries and comments about tuning variations, I will only note that it was an extremely tough time in Italy from 1936 to 1947 as well as elsewhere (particularly in Europe and related areas) and Alfa Romeo was walking a fine line between doing as Mussolini had mandated as well as coping with the belt-tightening that was going on in the real world. There were some real effects being felt in parts of the world where fuels were not so great and the "engineers" (mostly mechanics with some practical experience) at Alfa Romeo were fully aware that a car had to finish a race in order to win. So, most "engineering" and build defaults would have been towards the conservative side. Most engine builders would acknowledge that cam (valve) timing cannot get too radical without some compression to support it. And, you cannot have "compression" without good fuel and either good gaskets combined with good clamping or perhaps "no gaskets" as used on the earlier "testa fissa" and 8C2900 (Tipo B) and Tipo C engines.

Based on experience gained from earlier Alfa Romeo 6C cars, the Alfa Romeo mechanics would also have acknowledged that there are limitations to what you could expect from the valve gear design regarding revs and wear if too much was asked of it. So, some compromises were in order. Fortunately, Alfa Romeo was not the only one to have to play by the rules of the day, so all they had to do was be a little bit better than the competition. When they could be.

Although the promotional period reference shown earlier indicated that the 256SS engine was designed for 8.0 compression but actually raced at Tobruk with a more conservative 7.8, the stated change in horsepower ratings cannot be supported by such a small change in compression ratio alone so I have to believe that the cam timing ("valve timing") was also changed as part of the package. However, it is also true that fuels were being formulated constantly to meet the rules of the day but with intent to give some advantage over the competition. I will also note that each engine in this time period was probably something of a custom. Our assumptions based on what we consider "production" today bear little resemblance to "production" at Alfa Romeo in the 1938 to 1941 time period.

Of course, I was born 1957 and I should acknowledge that I "wasn't there" to know this any of this first-hand ... but I have been fortunate to work on a good number of important Alfa Romeo cars and engines of the 1929 to 1935 time period and have inspected a few from the 1938-1941 time period as well. There are messages that come from the metal. Metal that gives pretty strong hints at what was in the minds of those who shaped the metal. I am always hopeful to gain more insight ... with time. You certainly don't have to believe that I know anything whatsoever about what I fear I may have failed to convey? In fact, I believe you should be doing everything you can to develop your own interpretations of what Alfa Romeo metal might impart to you despite whatever I might tell you that it "says" to me.

[iicarJohn]

I will try to find the references that inspired the reference about "Targa Abruzzo" (body characteristics) but will note for the moment that the visura I got a few years ago in Milan merely states (Carrozzeria) "siluro 2 posti". Or something like that ... I'll have to look it up.