[Fiendish Farley]

Hi everyone

I found on the sprint thread that Titan Industries of Johannesburg were the dealers for Alfa in the 50's.

I have a 750 spider AR1495 02613 sold by Titan in February '58.

The car has now been in the UK for 16 years and I have never had any luck tracing its previous existance, any pointers or help gratefully recieved, I have a Log book from Natal province with one entry for 1990 giving the registration as LSM 3407?

Thanks, Fiendish

 

[AlfistiSA]

Hi Fiendish

Titan Industrial Corporation were indeed one of the South African Concessionaires in the '50's and '60's. They were based in Johannesburg.

Our '57 Spider 1495 02806, (October '57), was a Titan car, as was our one '57 Sprint, our '58 Sprint Veloce Confortevole, both of our '60 Spiders & Dad's '60 Sprint.

I'm guessing your car is the red one with factory fitted quarterlight windows - this was the European spec and certain SWB 750 Spiders had these - our 02806 has them.

LSM 3407 is not a registration plate that I recognise, back in the day Natal generally had "N" prefixed plates - ND or NPN. I suspect that LSM may be from Mozambique - the capital being Lorenzo Marques (LSM ??)

Ciao
Greig
Sunny South Africa

 

[Fiendish Farley]

Hi Greig,

Thank you for the information.

The car was originally built in Sept. 57 and registered in Feb 58 according to Alfa's records, also although now red it was originally white.

You are right about the quarterlights, which has caused confusion, as the glovebox is the open type but the door cards are clipped not screwed.

The car came with a hardtop but it is stored in the garage and I have not used it. Was this a usual option for South Africa?

The details on the Natal Registration Certificate were from page 2, there being no other details inside the green 'book', however I now find (!) on the front a faded number NP 73611.

Thank you again for your help,

Peter,
Wet UK Summer

 

[AlfistiSA]

Hi Peter

02806 was also white, as were most Alfa's that came to South Africa - in a tropical climate white is the coolest colour.

Hard tops were an option available through the Dealer, they came from Pininfarina, but some enterprising folks set up shop in the day & produced them in steel, aluminium & glass fibre - Gordon Raymond on this forum has done a study on all these and knows far more about the hard tops than I do - I'm sure he will comment on this for you. Basically all the options were expensive & as most folks were stretched to buy the basic car, not many coughed up the extra money for a hard top - which was usually painted the same colour as the car, although for a fee, Alfa would paint it any colour you liked, as would the Dealers.

The quarter lights are correct for your car, as is the open glove box & also the clipped door panels - most of these are now screwed into place as the hardboard panels fatigued & the clips fell off.....

NP 73611 is a Natal plate, I think it's from Petermaritzburg, I'll see what I can find out here. My '60 also came from Natal about 25 years ago.

Ciao
Greig

 

[GTD]

Fiendish/Peter
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