ALFA ROMEO 1900
This immaculately restored Alfa Romeo 1900C Super Sprint by Touring has an Aston Martin flavour about it – which isn’t surprising, once you’ve met its owner…
Rare and delectable Touring Super Sprint coupé
Ifirst saw this car on a visit to Beckenham-based Aston Martin specialists Pugsley & Lewis in late 2019. Tucked away in an outbuilding with a monstrous 7.3-litre V8 Vantage for company, it looked heartbreakingly pretty. Freshly restored, it was the personal property of company co-founder Tim Lewis and, although I was there to talk about Astons (for Octane’s sister magazine, Vantage), we agreed to meet up again. On which occasion it would be the Alfa’s turn.
And so we finally meet again, during a lull between Covid waves, on a dull and drizzly day in the Kent market town of Westerham. Not the most propitious circumstances in which to sample a rare and exotic Italian coupé, but the instant the Alfa pulls up at our rendezvous I fall in love with it all over again.
There were many variations of the longrunning Alfa 1900 series, launched in 1950. Family saloons at one extreme, the surreal, Bertone-designed BAT cars at the other. But for effortless, understated beauty you’d have to look very hard to find a variant to match the sublime, Touring-bodied coupés.
The 1900 was a landmark for Alfa: its first range of cars to be built on a production line and the first without a separate chassis. Available in saloon, coupé and cabriolet body styles, it delivered the company into a brave new post-war age of relative mass-production. But not all were mass-produced. While unitary construction really spelled the end for many coachbuilt cars, Alfa Romeo general manager Iginio Alessio had been keen to continue supporting Italy’s carrozzerie – and to that end Alfa provided naked rolling platforms to a number of favoured companies, including Touring of Milan for the coupé versions.
Of the Touring-bodied cars, arguably the loveliest were the third and final series, produced in a four-year run from 1955, of which the sportiest was the 1900C Super Sprint, with its lightened body and a tuned 115bhp version of Alfa’s twin-overhead-cam four-cylinder, by then expanded to almost two litres. The C in the name, incidentally, stands for Corto, Italian for short, indicating a shortened wheelbase compared with the saloon.
These aluminium-bodied coupés were the pinnacle of the Alfa range at the time. Only 854 Super Sprints were built and many were used in competition, where their low weight (sub1000kg) and strong performance (118mph from just 1975cc) made them a force to be reckoned with. In Britain, they were a vanishingly rare and genuinely exotic sight, just three being brought in by the official UK
‘If the proportions are exquisite, so too is the detailing, all the way from nose to tail’
Alfa importer, Brooklands-based Thomson & Taylor. And one of those – this car in fact – only because of a tragic turn of events.
‘The first owner, a Mr Scott, had another 1900C SS before it,’ explains Tim Lewis. ‘He’d bought the first car in 1956 but while it was back at Thomson & Taylor for a service a couple of young apprentices took it out without permission, crashed it and killed themselves. So the company bought him this one to replace it. It arrived in England in March ’57. Pretty soon after, he took it on the Tulip Rally, and it left the road and went 70ft off the side of an embankment. It was at night, the lights suddenly went out and they just went off the road… Fortunately they got lucky. Everywhere was snow-covered and they glided down through a field and came to a stop. When they recovered the car in the morning there was no damage to the bodywork at all.’
The car passed through the hands of several enthusiastic owners, but then fell on hard times. ‘I bought it from Richard Banks, the Alfa Romeo specialist, in 2002,’ continues Tim, ‘at which point it hadn’t run in 20 years or more. It was in need of full restoration but it was basically all there, though the cylinder head was off. I put on a slightly later type, which has a better, more robust design for the valvegear, though I kept the original head and it could be refitted if someone wanted to.’
While Tim took care of the engine rebuild (Pugsley & Lewis is renowned for its Aston engines), the bulk of the restoration was entrusted to Thetford-based Alfa specialists Roger and Nicola Longmate, with added input from the wider classic Alfa community.
‘Jon Dooley, who raced Alfa saloons back in the day and, sadly, died recently, helped me get a gearbox casing because that was cracked, and he also advised about what sort of shock absorbers to get – and it really does ride very well for an old car,’ says Tim.
‘It was quite advanced for its day – wishbone front suspension with an anti-roll bar, telescopic shock absorbers all round, fivespeed gearbox; and the brakes [finned drums] are massive for a small car. The only slightly old-fashioned aspect is that it has a steering box rather than rack-and-pinion, though it does steer very nicely.’
I think I’d be happy just looking at it. And if the proportions are exquisite, so too is the detailing, all the way from nose to tail. The
vertical grille with matched horizontal side intakes became an Alfa trademark, carried over first to the hugely successful Giulietta models of the late ’50s and early ’60s. At the other end, the Touring Superleggera shield and Alfa Romeo Milano badge adorn the perfectly pert tail. Everything speaks of good taste, an artist’s eye for proportions and line. Nothing is clumsy or ill-judged.
There’s an Aston Martin connection here, too, which was part of the appeal for Aston specialist Tim Lewis. The bonnet carries the same Superleggera badging as the Touringstyled DB4, 5 and 6, signifying that the Alfa uses the same ‘superlight’ construction as the British cars, with aluminium bodywork being formed over a thin tubular skeleton attached to a steel platform chassis. Touring patented the method, inspired by aircraft construction, and employed it for many of its cars; Aston used it under licence.
But there’s more. Both the Alfa and the DB4 were designed by the same guy – Federico Formenti, Touring’s genius stylist of the 1950s and ’60s. Once you know that, you begin to see similarities – in the shape of the bonnet aperture, the front wings, the bumpers – and you realise the clues were there all along. Among Tim’s personal collection of Astons is a gorgeous Series 1 DB4, the purest of the breed. Early DB 4 and late Alfa CSS: near contemporaries, and a more delectable pairing is hard to imagine.
‘To me the CSS is closest in ethos to the DB4 GT and Zagato – built light; slightly thinner metal. That’s the competition thing. They were bought by people who wanted to do events in them.’ And so they did, circuit and road events all over Europe, including the Mille Miglia.
Raise the rear-hinged bonnet (just like an early DB4’s) and there’s an impressive lump of an engine, bigger that you might have expected, with black crackle-finish cam covers and two twin-choke Solex carburettors. It’s not as sophisticated as a DB4’s straight six – the block is iron whereas the Aston’s was aluminium alloy – but it did the job on road and track. Not that it can’t be improved. As well as substituting the later head, Tim also fitted longer con-rods, shorter pistons and reprofiled cams, all with a view to fattening the torque.
When new in 1957, 227 CPF was black all over with a red interior, though many 1900 coupés had a two-tone paint treatment, which suits it particularly well. Tim chose the colours himself after much deliberation: Old English White and a deep metallic red, taken from a modern Mini and a 1980s BMW respectively!
He also put his personal stamp on the interior, replacing the plain cloth panels in the seats and on the doors with a rather more eye-catching material, sourced from a furniture upholsterers. ‘I looked at lots of pictures of what people have done with the CSS,’ he says. ‘I wanted something different, something Pebble Beach-like!’
The cabin is full of artful touches. The roof colour is carried inside, across the shapely dash and door cappings, while the slim, broad-radius steering wheel is a beautifully simple twospoke item with an inner metal ring that’s actually employed to flash the headlights rather than blow the horn – the white Bakelite hub with the inset Alfa shield takes care of tooting duties. A delicate stalk emerging just behind the wheel operates the self-cancelling indictors (quite a novelty in themselves in the mid-50s).
The exquisitely marked instruments are gathered in a binnacle directly ahead of the driver, the rev-counter red-lined at 6000rpm, the speedo reading to 220km/h. Many 1900 coupés had column-mounted gearshifts, but this car has a more conventional lever emerging straight from the gearbox, all the better for slicing between the five ratios.
Settle behind that vast wheel. It’s a wide, spacious-feeling cockpit, though not a terribly deep one: the low roofline means anyone much over 6ft might find the top of their head touching the headlining. Churn the big four into life and feel your way in. The clutch is a mechanical one rather than being hydraulically operated and its tight, meaty feel is in contrast to the lightness and sensitivity of the throttle pedal, a mere brush of which has the revs flying.
The gearchange has a pleasingly engineered, oiled feel to it and clutch take-up is smooth, while the unassisted steering, predictably
‘I looked at lots of pictures of what people have done with the CSS. I wanted something Pebble Beach-like!’ TIM LEWIS
heavy at parking speeds, lightens quickly once you’re underway.
Out onto the damp roads that climb through the Kent hills, it’s wonderful to be in a car with such a small footprint – you can place it exactly where you want without holding your breath every time oncoming traffic passes. The wraparound screen is quite distant but affords a lovely view down the long bonnet, the high tops of the wings helping you pick your line.
There’s a degree of free play in the steering, but once you apply a smear of lock it feels accurate and responsive, diving into turns with enthusiasm. The tyres have a tendency to follow cambers in the road, but not excessively so, while the ride on most surfaces is excellent. Only occasionally does it get caught out by a particularly sharp ridge or pothole, causing the rear to skip.
The longer you drive and the faster you go, the better it feels. That substantial four is smooth and sweet-sounding, a rich burble underlaid with some gentle gear-whine and at higher revs a real rasp to the exhaust. I think I’d expected it to feel highly strung – blame Italian stereotypes – but in fact the delivery is deepchested, solid, oozing mechanical integrity.
There’s a slight flat-spot in the lower revrange – ‘I’ve got to sort that out. Needs richening up a bit, I think,’ says Tim – but once through that there’s plenty of torque and it pulls with growing vigour and enthusiasm from 2500 right through 5000rpm. The car has covered fewer than 350 miles since restoration so there’s undoubtedly more to come.
It’s brisk rather than quick. Certainly not as quick as a DB4 – which, after all, had the advantage of two more cylinders and another 1.7 litres – but it’s not that far off, especially if you’re prepared to rev it out. You don’t need to thrash it to make decent progress, but if you need to drop a ratio the gearchanges can be palmed through pleasingly quickly, while it’s second nature to give the throttle a blip and match revs to road speed. Even the brakes are a delight (by no means a given in this era): progressive, sensitive, with abundant feel and decent power.
It’s not hard to see why these cars were highly sought-after in their day – and are highly prized more than 60 years later. Eligible for the Mille Miglia and other top-flight tours and rallies, it drives as well as it looks, and that says it all really. So what does Tim plan to do with it?
‘I don’t personally enter many cars for concours, but while it’s freshly restored it would be daft not to show it. I actually prefer to have cars that aren’t in perfect condition so I can use them more – that’s the only problem with it at the moment, being afraid to use it.’
If you need someone to wear it in for you, Tim, you’ve got my number. End