Hi Thomas! Congats to your Berlina!

According to the certificate I got from Centro Documentazione Alfa Romeo

... all my certificates of the centro storico include the information of the original colour... your not???

The colour of the shown part seems to be "blu le mans" I think.
Other blue colours are "blu olandese" (a very dark blue) and "blu pervinca met.", metallic and a little bit darker than "blu le mans".

best regards, Oliver

 

Thanks for the welcome, Oliver.

Yes, very strange that the Centro Storico could not say anything about the exterior color. Also everyone that I have spoken to has it on their Certificate, but when I asked in Italy (cert.origine@stellantis.com), I was told that "unfortunately this data is not directly reported on the production register, for this reason we can’t add this information on the Certificate". But I'll ask them again.

I've gone through all the AR color charts that I could find on the internet in order to see what color comes closest to what I found on the undercarriage. You say it might be "blu le mans", which is a color I quite like. And it certainly comes closer than any other shades of blue you mention (and that I have seen on the color charts). What makes me wonder though is that what I see on my car (and the photo I took is a pretty good representation) is almost petrol, as if there were a bit of green in there. "Blu le mans" doesn't have that, does it?

 

Thomas great to hear of your Berlina (post some more pics when you can!) .....

One thing that may come into play here is, from what I can see/read Alfa assembled some cars over a number of years in Malaysia. I can't confirm this but here is a link or two
to have a look at,

Our Founder – City Motors Group

citymotorsgroup.com.my

And this one mentions assembly,

Malaysia’s “Alfa King” Foo stands tall as the last of the Mohicans - Focus Malaysia

THE last of the Mohicans is probably an apt description of property developer Datuk Dr Foo Wan Kien who is the sole surviving automobile franchise holder of the early 1960s. He recently celebrated his 81st birthday on Sept 11. His peers included Tan Sri Loh Boon Siew a.k.a. Mr Honda who died in...

focusmalaysia.my

That may explain why no colour is recorded, the car may have been assembled in Malaysia. You need to check your chassis/VIN number against the FUSI records and see if its in
a CKD range (of course this would right hand drive for Malaysia).

I can't say i've read in any Alfa books about assembly there (well documented for South Africa , Rhodesia).

Maybe some others can contribute on this point.

You can find FUSI numbers here,

Scans of Fusi's Production Numbers (from...

Please find attached an excerpt of Fusi's book "Tutte le Vetture dal 1910" (All cars from 1910) regarding production numbers. Note: Fusi's book seems to have a number of errors. A better way to find out about your car is to contact the Alfa Romeo Historical Archive, as described here.

www.alfabb.com

I've included a pic (from the 1st link).

Good luck with it.

Paul.

 

This is my "project" 72 Berlina in LeMans Blue.

 

Very nice, bright color. A "proper" blue. But I don't think that this is what I am finding on my car. If I can't conclusively match that to anything, I might go with blu le mans. Or something else I like. Would be nice to solve that mistery though...

 

You may well be on to something there, Paul. To be honest, the possibility of local Malaysian assembly had not crossed my mind. In fact, although I was aware of the first article you linked, I must have skipped over the part were CKD assembly was mentioned.

Local Malaysian assembly would explain the relatively long time between delivery to Ipoh, Malaysia (Alfa City Motors) in May 1973 and first registration in May 1974. This was also the case with my locally assembled Lotus Elise S1 that as per chassis number is a 2001 model, but was first registered in 2004, well after production in the UK had ended.

Local assembly would indeed also explain why the Centro had no records of the exterior color. What it doesn't explain though is why they would then be able to tell me that the interior color was "tessuto plastificato blu marino". And of course it also provides no clue as to the weird shade of blue the car seems to have come in.

Looking at the FUSI numbers, my chassis number indicates my car to be a 2000 Berlina G.d. or 2000 Berlina CKD. The numbers for both are identical, but I have no idea what the "G.d." stands for (page 846). Strangely, my car's engine doesn't fall into the corresponding range of engine numbers, but the Centro confirmed that chassis and engine numbers match. That may be one of the error's in the Fusi book that Ruedi mentioned at the outset.

 

G.D = Guida Destra = Right Hand Drive ....

 

Makes sense. Thanks.

 

I think it may be a common issue with period colour identification, below is the response I received from the Centro Storico regarding my Australian delivered 1972 Berlina in "blu pervinca"...

"Kindly note that the piece of information regarding the exterior color is not clearly encoded in the production register. It might correspond to either the beige chiaro metallizzato or the blu pervinca metallizzato color. Therefore we cannot add this detail in the document.

Please be informed that according to other sources that are conserved in the Centro Documentazione (that are the color samples of 1972) the interior in Tessuto plastificato color cuoio naturale is generally combined with the exterior color Blu pervinca metallizzato."

 

Interesting. Your car being a 1972 Berlina too, have you checked in the Fusi book linked here earlier whether it might be CKD as well?

 

I’ve just seen this thread and my immediate reaction when reading the 1st post is “Malaysian assembled car“. The factory kept precious few records of CKD vehicles once they left the factory.

That blue looks lighter than Le Mans Blue.

 

I don‘t mind a CKD car at all. This is not my only one. But I‘m pretty sure now that (a) what I see under the protective coating on the undercarriage is the first color (nobody here removes the protective coating and resprays the chassis), and that (b) this is not an Alfa Romeo color. Who knows, maybe this was a special request by the original owner, and the importer/distributor obliged?

 

At

Perhaps Malay assembled cars had the final colour sprayed under the protective layer. In Italy they did the reverse; protective layer then body colour sprayed to top of that. Hence an Italian asembled car is body colour top and bottom (my ‘73 GTV is like that).

 

Could also be. But anyway, if I can't determine the original color, I feel free to choose an original Alfa color from that model year that I like. In a way, that makes things a bit easier (and possibly easier on the eyes).

 

My old 66 Guilia, was Australian delivered, is in FUSI as CKD (I think that RHD CKD's and non CKD's were all produced in the same batch so to speak).

Paint colour was probably arbitrary, ie. selected locally like the South African cars. They were painted Mecrcedes, Nissan etc colours, basically whatever was in the tins sitting in the factory!

Would expect cars assembled in Malaysia to be much the same.

 

This is very interesting, especially on the South African cars. I would agree that Malaysia probably operated the same way. Was there local assembly from CKD in Australia back in 1966? Or where did your car come from?

 

no Australian assembly, car was made in Italy and delivered/sold to Australia .. i think when they tooled up for RHD and ran a batch through... fully assembled and CKD would get pumped out in the same VIN range...