[jacob.wilbert]

Hi, I need an expert here. I've got a roundtail eurospider that I'm selling. Power brakes, 1750, dual webers, all that. Problem is one of my potential buyers is asking weather it's really a 69. He says someone he checked the VIN with claims its a 1971 eurospider. Previous title and registration said 1970, which made sense as my '66 Duetto's title says '67 on it, but I thought '69 was the last year for the roundtails. Why would it be listed somewhere as a '71?

 

[Zunige]

1970 was a transition year, since Alfa was re-designing the Spider, and hence no Spiders were imported to the U.S.A. 1971 was the first year for the the "Kamm tail" Spider. There were a few 1970 roundtails in Europe, but I have never heard of any 1971 models. It could be that the car was sold in '71 and therefore titled as a '71. This was not an uncommon practice. Best thing to do is to e-mail the VIN to [email protected]. They will tell you the year, original colors of the car, and where it was first sold.

Best regards,

 

[Peter]

like Enrique says, the Archivio can help you. If you pm me your chassis number, I can also look what Fusi lists it as

 

[jjb]

I had a similar thing on my '69 roundtail. it was originally sold as a 1970 model in the U.S.
Knowing there was no such thing (its a U.S. spec model) as a 1970 Alfa in the U.S., I did some research with the Texas BMV.

Turns out that an Alfa still unsold on the dealer's lot as of Jan. 1 1970, was sometimes sold as a 1970 model. Using Willie R.'s excellent website http://www.veloce.se/
which has a Duetto register, we could easily see that lots of spiders that had later chassis numbers than mine from all over the world (inc'l. U.S. ) were 1969 models. The BMV changed the title of my car to a '69 based on this.

A visit to Wille's site may help you, dunno.

Zungie and other are right. As far as I know, there is no such thing as a 1971 roundtail. Maybe yours was one of the Euro roundtails from 1970 that was sold in 1971 in a similar fashion to my car ?

Cheers,
Jeff

 

[WopJob]

just a curiosity, I guess that "Old" spiders didn't have VIN tags riveted in the door (or other place) post as the "Newer" spiders do to tell what year it was made.

 

[ossodiseppia]

just a curiosity, I guess that "Old" spiders didn't have VIN tags riveted in the door (or other place) post as the "Newer" spiders do to tell what year it was made.

The "early" 69 US spec Alfas had no VIN tags riveted to the door jam. Sometime during production, they got them.

 

[LS jr.]

I am one of the potential buyers

and yes this is a little odd. The VIN shows up in both Fusi's numbers and Willie R's list within the group defined as 1971 1750 Spider Veloce (European market) - 105.57. Both lists show that there were about 600 sold (or manu'd?) in that year and the chassis #'s start at 1412445 and range to 1413036. This car falls within this range.

I'm sure the esteemed Marco Fazio will clear this up once and for all!

 

[Erik]

According to Willie's list http://veloce.se/STAT.HTM last 105.57 (LHD non US models) had chassis 1411787 and was build in 1969/70, first S2 1750 had same type ID (105.57) but 182 prefix to the chassis numbers, first built '69, ch. no. 1820001. My 1750 S2 have ch.no. 1820173, was built on 4 Sept. 1970, according to the Archivo.
By the way, yes, there is some confusion of the numbers produced of at least the 105.57. If you count the numbers built every year you get 3036, but the Total states 4039????
Roundtails (S1) was, according to what I've read, built by Pinifarina and S2s were built by AR in Arese, so production can have overlapped untill parts at Pinifarina had been used up. For instance, last RHD S1 (105.58) was built in July '70, first S2 built in April '71.
These cars often stayed at dealers for very long time, so many roundtails wasn't sold to custermers untill 1971 or 1972 - in Europe they were regarded as very expencive, they retailed at the same price as 2 MGBs, so buyers didn't exactly que-up at dealers show rooms to buy Spiders.
Erik

 

[ossodiseppia]

Fusi's numbers are not accurate. The best source of information is from Alfa and from Le Vetture di Produzione by Amico and Tabucchi. The bodies were produced at the Pininfarina factory and sent via truck to Arese for the mechanicals. Body shells were assembled and stuffed in corners at Pininfarina factory. That is why you may run into a car that has a production date that doesn't fit with other cars of the same type (105.03, 105.57, etc) According to Amico and Tabucchi chassis 105.03.660015 was produced in 1969. Chassis numbers 105.03.660016 and 660028 were produced in 1967. All of the other cars with low chassis numbers like these were produced in 1966. For the most part, the 1600 Duettos seem to have been produced in some sort of sequential order. The first series 1750 Spiders were not necessarily produced sequentially. If you look at Amico and Tabucchi's book, the numbers are all over the place. For example chassis 105.57.1410002 was produced in 1967 and chassis 105.57.1410003 was produced in 1968. There are many chassis the look as if they should have been produced in 1967 but were in fact produced in 1968. There were a few US spec 1750 roundtail spiders produced in 1970. According to Amico and Tabucchi, chassis 105.62.1481373 to 105.62.1482220 were produced in 1970.

 

[60sRacer]

I was doing some racing with Otto Zipper Motors in 66 - 70, and had a little of the Alfa story for those years. Italy was in labor turmoil for much of that period, with strikes at most of the auto factories sporadically over the entire period. Pinnafarina would have a strike, Arese a different one, Alfa and Fiat (both got nationalized somewhere int this period), and even Ferrari were all hit by this turmoil.

Alfa expanded out of Milan with the Sud as a part of the government's efforts to quell high unemployment in the south.

All of this made Alfa production after 67 eratic. Chasing numbers, chassis, parts, is like trying to corral grasshoppers! For several years, especially the roundtails were assembled from whatever parts were on hand.

Robert

 

[Erik]

Quote: "both got nationalized somewhere int this period"
Fiat was never nationalized and Alfa had belonged to a national industrial board since around 1930. The board (ne, goverment) sold Alfa to the Fiat Group in 1985/6, Ford had bid at Alfa, but for reasons of national pride Fiat was in the end offered Alfa.
The rest of Robers story is right.
Erik

 

[60sRacer]

Fiat not? Well I'll stand corrected with appologies. Sure thought it was so. Even surprised AFAIR that Ferarri - which was absorbed by Fiat wasn't it?? - was being run by what amounted to the Italian Labor Depaertment.

Well, even very strong memories can be very wrong. Unfortunately this is probably not even the first error today for me....


Robert

 

[Alfacliff]

I had a 70 spider back in the 70's. my son Dan has a 69 spider he is working on. there are a few differences between his and my (old) memory of the 70, his has no cold air intake like mine had. my 74 spider has a "scoop" in the front with a tube for the air hose to the airbox like my 70 had, his does not. I wish I still had some records of the old spider with vin, but that was lon ago when my Xwife burned the engine.
cliff

 

[Cosmo]

My Spider is quite early for a UK 1750 at VIN 1470036 and is recorded by the factory as an early 1968 build car. This is confirmed by all the early features such as the teardrop repeaters behind the front wheels and the small trailing arm bushings. However it didn't get to the UK until mid 1968 and wasn't registered for the road until 1969. A year spent dissolving in the UK climate before anyone drove it

 

[jjb]

Its starting to look like the question "what year is it ? " can be a little academic with Alfas of this era.
May be best to go with "which model year's design is it ?"
Guess this is why the VIN number concept with the year of manufacture was instituted !

Jeff

 

[Erik]

Its starting to look like the question "what year is it ? " can be a little academic with Alfas of this era.
May be best to go with "which model year's design is it ?"
Guess this is why the VIN number concept with the year of manufacture was instituted !

Jeff

You can always send an e-mail to the Arcivo with the VIN and get date of maunfacture and either shipping or (for Italian cars) 1st. reg. date.
Don't know of US cars, but on European cars VIN plate doesn't state either year or date.
Fore the serie 105.57 round tail, it is pritty sure that they were manufactured before 1970, last ch.no. is 105.05.1411787
Erik

 

[ossodiseppia]

You can always send an e-mail to the Arcivo with the VIN and get date of maunfacture and either shipping or (for Italian cars) 1st. reg. date.
Don't know of US cars, but on European cars VIN plate doesn't state either year or date.
Fore the serie 105.57 round tail, it is pritty sure that they were manufactured before 1970, last ch.no. is 105.05.1411787
Erik

What's your source for this last chassis no? Amico and Tabucchi show the last chassis number to be 1412788.

 

[Cosmo]

Amico and Tabucchi show the last chassis number to be 1412788.

And actual surviving cars have been known as high as 1412898 - according to Chris Rees, "Original Alfa Romeo Spider".

 

[Erik]

Well, according to http://www.alfaclubdc.com/ProductionList.pdf (probably duplicated on www.veloce.se , Wille R's Spider web) ch. 1412788 is among the 105.57 produced in 1971.
As someone wrote earlier, sometimes they found something in a corner at the factory and made a car out of it, so nothing is absolutely sure.
Unfortunately, the production list don't differentiate chassis nos. between round tail and Kamm tail version although actual chassis nos. in the Vin plates differ, round prefix 141, Kamm prefix 182. Furthermore, the ch. nos. count and the official numbers of 105.57 differs 1013 units.
All the more reason for sending an e-mail to ARCHIVIO STORICO ALFA ROMEO [[email protected]]
Erik

 

[ossodiseppia]

Well, according to http://www.alfaclubdc.com/ProductionList.pdf (probably duplicated on www.veloce.se , Wille R's Spider web) ch. 1412788 is among the 105.57 produced in 1971.
As someone wrote earlier, sometimes they found something in a corner at the factory and made a car out of it, so nothing is absolutely sure.
Unfortunately, the production list don't differentiate chassis nos. between round tail and Kamm tail version although actual chassis nos. in the Vin plates differ, round prefix 141, Kamm prefix 182. Furthermore, the ch. nos. count and the official numbers of 105.57 differs 1013 units.
All the more reason for sending an e-mail to ARCHIVIO STORICO ALFA ROMEO [[email protected]]
Erik

Those look like pages from Fusi's book. I would not consider those accurate. Amico and Tabucchi show a gap in 105.57 serial numbers between 1410442 and 1411621. Fusi's number could be interpreted that the cars were produced with sequential serial numbers. They were not.