[Fayray]

I had a look to find the engine number on my 74 Spider 1600 Junior and found that the unique part of the number is missing. The car was 1st registered in Rome but came to New Zealand in the late 80s. It appears from the first part of the number that it's the correct engine for the car and has the later spin on oil filter which should make it dead right for the car as I understand. I can't understand why it would've been removed (the chassis number is present) unless AR supplied it as an un-numbered block for a warranty claim. Did this happen? Or is it just a case of somebody removing for reasons lost to time?

 

[spiderserie4]

alfa did supply unnumbered blocks, but then iirc they had no number at all on them, so yours giving the type number followed by the star, yet lacking the serial #, is a bit odd....
I wouldn't worry about it. Lots of strangeness went on at alfa.

 

[VeloceSA]

Judging by the remnants of the second star on the top of your photo, my guess would be that the original number was filed off !

 

[AaronsSpider]

For these cars that don’t have “matching numbers” would there be a point to filing the numbers off ??

 

[Fayray]

thanks for the comments. These sorts of things bug me but ultimately I guess it's nothing to worry about.
spiderserie4 - I thought AR might stamp the type number and the stars on a replacement block so they could identify what block was being sent out, but I admit I can find no evidence of this.