If you subscribe now, before it’s too late, we will send you a copy of Barn Find Alfa, a 32 page booklet, free including shipping anywhere in the world. As they say on TV, supplies are limited. We sold most of the print run out at $20 each, but we’ll give out the remaining copies to those who want to become a Premium Susbcriber. When you subscribe, all those pesky black boxes that say “this content is for subscribers only” magically disappear and you’ll have full access to the thousands of archived articles. Plus there are three ways to joing up…PayPal, Credit Card, or by check.
Click here to join up and get your free copy!.
Ok it’s free, but what is it about?
We think you will enjoy Barn Find Alfa, (not only because it will be shipped to you free of charge when you subscribe), but because it speaks of what we all have in common: a search for a rare classic, sharing the find with knowledgeable and helpful friends, the risks and decision one makes when embarking upon vintage car racing, the manner in which a classic should be prepared for road use, to what degree should it be restored, and, a story of long term relationships and enthusiasm, bound by a shared experience of one remarkable Alfa Romeo.
In the annals of classic car discoveries and ownership, The Barn Find Alfa is not unique; many rarer cars in the Vintage Sports Car Club have long histories of ownership passed on from generation to generation, or to fellow club members keeping the car within the same tight group of dedicated individuals. Barn finds alone are not worth a hay, some real, some faked, but all having the aura of a magical discovery.* Still, there are lot of barns along the Eastern Seaboard in which lot of classic cars were found over the years.
To be sure, Barn Find Alfa was a bona fide Barn Find if there ever was one, a race car and rare Veloce model to boot. But what makes ‘our’ Barn Find Alfa interesting is that its known 35 year history was related to us by all the owners save the first (and we are still working on that), and that we were able to put together a photographic account of the rescue, race history, rally years and finally, restoration (in two senses of the word as we will see) into a slight but charming book. VeloceToday Editor Pete Vack, Keith Goring, Sue Dixon, Matt Jones, Dr. Peter Fodor and Frank Allocca, all of whom had a hand in preserving the car since it was a barn find all contributed their experiences owning, selling, racing, repairing and rallying the Barn Find Alfa for the book.
Pages from the booklet.
The continuing saga of the Barn Find Alfa and trick of the memory
Since it was first published in 2013, there have been some new developments that shed a bit more light on its history.Barn Find Alfa was originally written and published five years ago after a chance email sent to us by VeloceToday subscriber and then owner Frank Allocca, who wanted to know if I remembered anything about an Alfa Sprint that we sold to Keith Goring and Sue Dixon a zillion years ago. I dimly recalled that we had some pictures around, and after the normal procrastination and searching, the circa 1977 photos were found, and we found that an interesting article, or short book under our VeloceToday Select imprint was possible.
Here is how the photos were found, ready to be copied and printed in a local magazine. But where was the article in which they appeared?
But at the time I didn’t have the full story. When we found the original photos for Frank, I saw they had been cropped and sized for magazine publication, which meant that I had probably written a story about the find. However, could not recall or find the article (35 years and a lot of words later, it is hard to remember everything). And not surprisingly, what Frank wanted to know was who the original owner, and who had raced the car and then left it in a barn, something I could not remember. Perhaps I had left some clues in the original article, if only I could find it. Running out of time, we put together the story, and the book, assuming there was no trace of the original article.
Recently that article about finding the Sprint Veloce in a barn came to light. It wasn’t definitive but provided some leads and added more information to the story. Here is an edited version. This does not appear in the book:
From The C.A.R. volume 1 number 2, May 1984.
By Pete Vack
A few years ago I was approached by a young neighbor of mine about a car he had seen on a farm in Pungo, VA. He said he knew the car was an Alfa Romeo but had no idea how old or what type it was. Although he owned an Alfa himself, he could only describe it as ‘weird’.
We sat down with all the Alfa books to see if he could identify it by the pictures. No luck – the car was covered with hay and farm equipment far in the dark corner of a barn. Not only was I puzzled, but the knowledge of the car, or lack of it, was eating my insides like a broken piston ring. For months I tried to get him to show the farm, or give me an address, a phone number, name, anything. But he was always too busy or couldn’t remember.
The fabled farmhouse about to be invaded by insane Alfisti.
Finally, we got it all together and I convinced him we should try to find the farm. We found it and had a good look. It indeed was an old Alfa, hardly recognizable but apparently complete. Horse manure had made it messy to reach, but I knew the car was enough of a find to try to get the car of the barn and into protective customer…preferably mine.
The car was more of a find than my friend and I had realized. Although I had many visions ot what it might turn out to be, I really didn’t expect it to be a race car. It even had big white circles on the doors. Specifically, it was a 1959 Alfa Romeo Giulietta Sprint Veloce, in very nice shape, but without the engine. Still, it was a rare find that was eligible for the current vintage race car events, a fact which made its value well beyond what it might normally be.
After I returned home, I eventually got it touch with the owner. It seems he had once raced the car in the SCCA events and he said the car had been stored in the barn for a number of years. We arranged a deal (yes, it was a good one) I borrowed a trailer and asked some friend if they would come along to help extricate the car (without telling them about the horse manure). Realizing that this could be an experience worth remembering, I brought a camera along. After all, old cars in barns were getting very hard to find.
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In the next few weeks we’ll pursue the leads found in the missing article, (we found that the neighbor who led us to the barn is still in the area) and see if we can eventually uncover the still unknown SCCA racer, and keep you posted. In the meantime, Barn Find Alfa also has a new owner, and you won’t believe who it is.
*We often thought that Ken Purdy’s story about a discovery of a Mercer Raceabout in his Kings of the Road established both the magic and a barn find phenomenon that is still with us today. However, Purdy did not find the Mercer in a barn, or find it at all. After being hauled out of a grove of poplar trees in Canada, it was shipped to him by rail.