Story and photos by Brandes Elitch
From the Archives, October 14, 2009
One of the most striking cars I’ve ever seen is a 1957 Alfa 1900 Primavera coupe with a Boano body. This car is so rare that I have never even seen a picture of one.
The Alfa Primavera when spotted by Brandes Elitch. Brochure, above, states that this is two door 1900. Primavera means Spring, as in the season. Monoscocca means monocoque and refers to the unit frame construction.
Before we go into the history of this particular car, a few words are in order about Boano, or to be more precise, Felice Mario Boano, of the Italian coachbuilding firm bearing his name. Boano originally worked for coachbuilder Ghia, a venerable Italian firm founded in 1918. Giacinto Ghia saw Boano as his protégé, and made arrangements to transfer ownership of the firm to Boano when he retired. Unfortunately, Ghia died of a heart attack in February, 1944, while supervising reconstruction of his factory, destroyed in Allied bombing raids the previous year. Ghia’s widow, wanting to maintain the continuity of the firm, transferred ownership to Boano and Giorgio Alberti. Boano had apprenticed at Stablimenti Farina, and then Pinin Farina, as a “soccheria,” an industrial provisioning company, supplying the wooden bucks that were used to hand-form car bodies out of aluminum. Boano bought out his partner, Alberti, in 1947, and in 1948, realizing that his talents lay in styling, not management, hired Luigi Segre to take over the day to day management at Ghia. Segre had previously worked at SIATA, and went on to create and manage a famous relationship with Virgil Exner at Chrysler. In 1953, Boano sold Ghia to Segre, and started his own firm. Boano managed his firm, in conjunction with his son, Gian Paolo, until the end of 1957, when he transferred it to his son-in-law, Ezio Ellena, (husband of Gian Paolo’s sister) who took over with his old partner Luciano Pollo. Confusing? Yes, but probably no more so than most family held companies.
Everything about the Primavera was deluxe.
Then, in 1957, Boano was hired as the head of FIAT Centro Stile, which would be the Italian equivalent of Harley Earl running the “Art and Colour” section at GM. At FIAT, Boano created the FIAT 600 and the Simca 1000, among other things. While these things are always subject to interpretation, prominent historian Jan Norbye believes that Boano gets the credit for the VW Karmann-Ghia. Boano is also credited for the Alfa Giulietta Sprint (later manufactured by Bertone) and the Lancia Aurelia B20 (later manufactured by Pininfarina), as well at a famous Alfa 6C2500S convertible from 1949. Boano is certainly a famous name in Italian coachbuilding.
Now, for our feature car. The owner found the car in a barn in New Jersey, where it had slumbered for almost fifty years. The great grandfather of the seller brought it over from Italy and put only 43,000 kilometers on it before putting it away. It is believed that five of these coupes were constructed, of which three have this taillight configuration, which incidentally, was a major challenge in the restoration. The present owner had to perform a complete restoration, including all chrome, the interior, and a complete respray, matching as closely as possible the original grey and gold color. The current owner is relatively young, but he grew up in Milan, and speaks Italian, and when he first heard about the car he knew that he had to restore it, although of course the rule of thumb on these things is to take the original estimate and double the time and triple the costs.
The trim is not only unique but very hard to repair and restore.
The car received a very sympathetic and highly accurate restoration, and looks as it must have appeared when the Boano company delivered it to the first owner, 22 years ago. Perhaps most surprising are the details: the chrome trim around the front door and the rear window, which all had to be done by hand, and for only five examples. Of course today the cost of making a custom car (in this case, transforming a four door sedan into a two door coupe) would be prohibitive, and it must have been expensive even fifty years ago. The new owner, Guido Lanza, is to be congratulated on a highly accurate restoration, which would be difficult to do even in Italy, not to mention here in the US, where no parts for an Alfa 1900 are available at all.
The Boano body is unlike any other 1900. We’d judge it as the ultimate 1900 sedan based on a stock body.
According to the Alfa archives, 281 Primaveras were built. I know of about 20 over the past few years to be in existence. With regard to the rear lights, I certainly know of one to have the ‘tortoise back’ rear lights of the 1900 Super, but may be one or two have been repaired that way. Of the earlier Primavera without that chrome trim below the quarter vents, I have only ever seen a press photograph. Whether it was really a ‘First series’ is another matter. Having driven one around Goodwood with the owner alongside and despite the tyres howling, his eyes remained open, and the children in the rear continued to play cards ~ I enjoyed the drive.
Unlike the Sunbeam Rapier which was a coupé version of the Hillman Minx and the Monaco which was a coupé version of the family Simca Aronde Montlhèry, the Primavera was standard 1900 Super without more power. (The Grande Large was the coupé of the more basic family Aronde). Had the Primavera been available on the TI Super, there wouild have been a long queue of customers at the Alfa factory. it was marketed as a factory Alfa Romeo without any indication of its Boano production, either by badging or reference in the brochure.
A missed opportunity which hopefully one day will become a Primavera with all the TI goodies installed, and submitted for a road test to an Italian magazine, perhaps with the caption “A missed opportunity?”
I’m not sure where the rumour about Boano designing the Giulietta Sprint comes from. As everybody knows, it was drawn by Franco Scaglione.
Always good to see something on Primaveras. I have a long running and helpful discussion ongoing with Peter Marshall on the Primavera I have, that needs a complete rebuild, on the fact it has a TI identity alloy plaque on the bulkhead, which came with it and has been there all the time I have owned it, since the late seventies. The engine number shown on it though is late 1306. The engine is stored behind a number of others so haven’t been able to check it. A Ruoteclassiche piece (with Blu Team connections) referred to some Primaveras either being delivered in TI engine spec, or converted by the dealer prior to delivery. I am also searching for evidence of a Primavera competing in period. This is before deciding the spec for the restoration. And wanting it to go as well as possible.
PS My Primavera has the same rear lights as the feature car, common I think with the early 750 series Giulietta Sprint and the Series 4 1900C Super Sprint.
Many thanks for the article.