Tipo 101.04?

Yes,I have it stamped on my 1961(built April,1960,)Giulietta Normale spider ID plate.It is the number for USA designated spiders. Copy is from the Feb.1962 Alfa Owner Bulletin.

Hi Chris

As near as I can figure, it was a bureaucratic decision taken towards the end of the Interim Period, circa late '59 early '60 right about the time the old 750 designations were being replaced by the new Tipo 101 designations. At this time the most prolific purchaser was the US importer Hoffman. At times almost 90% of Giulietta production went to the USA, so Hoffman carried a bit of clout with the factory. As with all buyers, he wanted a bit of discount, so began to delete certain things not required by US laws and others that he considered unnecessary - all as a cost-saving exercise

The 750 Spiders in US Spec did not get quarter light windows and had the Lucas 'football' tail lights

The 101 Spiders in USA Spec got quarter light windows - (this was how Pininfarina disguised the added length in the doors on the LWB cars), but they did not get side indicators and had a more simplistic flat bar hook-and-strap type number plate bracket, the Lucas tail lights were phased out in favour of the Italian Carello or Altissimo versions, but red-on-red

The 101 Sprints in USA Spec also did not get fender indicators and on the later pure 101 cars they also did not get the big chrome number plate bracket. Tail lights were big and red-on-red

A couple of bucks saved per car soon added up for Hoffman and the Factory made a bureaucratic decision to differentiate the models built into Tipo America and Tipo Italia based upon the spec that the respective cars were built to. In practice they found it was clumsy & didn't really work to any advantage as the workers assembled what they had on the line, so if a shell arrived with no fender repeater holes, then the wiring harness for a Tipo USA was installed and ditto the tail lights. But the clincher would have been when orders flooded through for a particular colour car, say Celeste Blue Spiders, (Remember that Farina & Bertone batch-built cars and colours), rather than hold up Hoffman's order, the Factory would have swallowed the cost of the Non-USA spec items and shipped what they had in the stock yard at the time........which sort of negated the need to split the models into such detail and in-part accounts as to why there is a variety of specifications on the cars in the USA...

Also remember that this was Post-war Italy, Alfa was a quasi-State owned organisation, subject to Italian Administration & working with State money. Overwhelming Bureaucracy came naturally. After about 5 or 6 months, someone, (probably the overworked Tipo designation clerk) pointed out that they shipped whatever they had in stock & this negated the need to split things ad-infinitum, so they reverted back to 10103/10107 & 10102/10106 + the rest, while the 10104/10105 Tipo USA etc designations were consigned to a footnote in the archives.

Here we are 55 years later trying to puzzle out Luigi’s muddling bureaucracy..... If anyone has one of these Tipo designated cars, you now have a little something extra to add to your cars history. Out here in the Colonies, we got the Export spec – read this as whatever was leftover in the stock yard which explains a friend’s USA Spec Sprint and one of my ’57 Sprints with metric gauges 5 years before SA moved to the metric system

While the above is not cast in stone, it’s a reasonable guestimate of what and why things happened. I’m sure others will add more info as this thread progresses.

Ciao
Greig

Sunny South Africa

rrdsprint said:

Thanks for the Alfa owner bulletin copy. It's now copied into my records.
We have 101.24 sprint veloce.
I couldn't remember where I had seen the listings as above to know it was a USA delivery, possibly Alfa Ricambi catalog?

Thanks

Richard

Click to expand...

You could have seen it in Alfa Romeo's Giulietta 2nd book coachworks parts manual(11/61) page 6.

Mark

There is a boot that covers the folded top. Originally similar vinyl material to the seats with a ply of cotton duck to the back. This boot snaps to the back perimeter of the canvas top and in the interior as the drape type does. This setup (as seem on my wife's 60' Veloce) was probably added with the long wheel base change, maybe?..
Alfa eventually went back to the drape type with a stainless trim instead of hooks.

Many cars have this setup, similar to the Mercedes 190sl. People have various opinions on this look. Personally, I like it, as it gives more of a finish look then from the the hook/drape system which seems archaic but necessary for the short wheel base.

Mark

Top up on the 190sl with snaps around the perimeter and Alfa's manual on the top.

Mark

Mark is correct, the fixed top appears to have arrived with the LWB cars towards the end of '59 & disappeared towards the end of '60, so about a 15 or 16 months, maybe a bit less.

Clearly Alfa thought this was the best system ever as they used a pretty Bella Signorita to promote it in the pictures, the rest of you with the hook systems got that stocky bloke from the stores in his dust coat :wink2:

Seriously though, we have two '60 Spiders with the fixed top and a '57 SWB with the hooks, I can put the top up on mine in seconds, while the '57 is a PITA to sort out. I far prefer the fixed top.

Here's my 10990 with Dad's 02806 as well as some of 08415 which was for sale a while ago - the Chinese Red is very striking against the Farina white !!

Ciao
Greig