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Beauty As a Liability: The Ferrari Lusso

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lusso-11.jpg

By Wallace Alfred Wyss

I remember visiting a guy in Newport Beach about 20 years ago who was a Can-Am racer who had just bought a Ferrari 250GT Lusso. I felt sorry for him because , as far as Ferrari 250s go , that model was known at the time as strictly a boulevard car with no racing potential, and therefore little investment potential. [Read more…] about Beauty As a Liability: The Ferrari Lusso

Alfas on the Track Part II

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Alfas in England but where. Photo by Jeff Allison.

Jeff Allison continues his tribute to Alfa Romeo’s 100th anniversary
with images from races where Alfas competed in 1972 and 1974.

Part I

Words and Photos by Jeff Allison

Alfa hoped for success in endurance racing in 1972 with a new car. Prospects appeared bright as the team had some momentum from winning three manufacturers’ title races in 1971. However, it was not to be. In 1971, Alfa had practiced occasionally but never raced a new model called the 33TT3. A Telaio Tubolare (tubular chassis) replaced the previous aluminum monocoque. It reduced the frontal area for lower drag, and the gearbox was relocated and the driver moved forward for better balance. Alfa intended to introduce a more powerful flat-12 engine for the TT chassis, but it wasn’t ready to race in 1972. This left Alfa (read Autodelta) with a heavier chassis (steel tubes) and a now old, underpowered V-8 to race against Ferrari’s 312 P(B), which would become the dominant car in 1972.


The BOAC 1,000kms on April 16 followed Buenos Aires, Daytona and Sebring in the 1972 manufacturers’ championship, where Alfa placed third overall in each race. When the Alfa team arrived in their transporter full of 33TT3 cars and parts at the 2.65-mile Brands Hatch road racing course, the spirit around the Alfa camp was upbeat. Could they turn the tables and upset Ferrari’s 312 P(B)s, which had won the first three races?

The paddock at Brands Hatch was crowded with the 23 cars that qualified for the BOAC 1,000kms World Championship Sports Car Race. The Alfa paddock area was relatively quiet during the moments before the race as mechanics and spectators mill around the cars. According to the race report in Autosport, the 33TT3s had been lightened by removing the safety fuel tanks for this one race, and the engine was tweaked to around 440-hp. Despite three consecutive third places in the first three races, the 33TT3s were just .3 seconds faster than they had been at Brands a year earlier in 1971, and the 450-hp 312 P(B)s would go on to dominate the 1972 championship.

At the start, the three works Ferrari 312 P(B)s that qualified 1-2-3 have already gone out of the picture as has the fourth place on the grid 33TT3 (#8) of Peter Revson/Rolf Stommelen. Seen here are the Andrea de Adamich and Vic Elford (#6) and Nanni Galli and Helmut Marko (#7) 33TT3s surrounded by two- and three-liter rivals from Lola, Gulf-Mirage and Chevron.

American Peter Revson was driving for Alfa in the manufacturers’ championship for sports cars and for McLaren in F1 and the Can-Am in 1972.

Revson was partnered by German Rolf Stommelen, who had become a regular with Alfa Romeo in sports cars and raced with Team Eifelland Caravans in a March 721 in F1 in 1972.

Revson and Stommelen drove their Autodelta (works) 33TT3 (#8) to third overall and third in the Sports 3000 class. Starting fourth on the grid behind three works Ferrari 312 P(B)s, the pair finished one lap behind the second-place Ferrari and two laps behind the winning Ferrari of Mario Andretti and Jacky Ickx. The photo shows Revson (#8) leading the Lola T280s, powered by three-liter Cosworth V-8s, of the Jo Bonner team—Chris Craft and Gerard Larrousse (#3) and Rene Wisell and Bonnier (#4).

Vic Elford (left) speaks with codriver Andrea de Adamich before the start. Elford was picked up by Alfa from the now defunct Martini & Rossi Porsche 917 team. De Adamich, a long-time Alfa sports car driver, also drove a Surtees TS9B-Cosworth Ford for the Ceramica Pagnossin team in F1 in 1972.

The 33TT3s just couldn’t match the speed of the Ferrari 312 P(B)s, and Elford and de Adamich drove the #6 33TT3 to a fourth overall and fourth in the Sports 3000 class. Qualifying eighth on the grid, they completed 231 laps to finish two laps behind the Revson and Stommelen 33TT3 (#8). The photo shows Englishman Elford at the wheel.

The third Autodelta 33TT3 (#7) in the BOAC 1,000kms was driven by Nanni Galli and Helmut Marko. Galli also raced F1 for the Martini Racing Team in a Tecno PA123 and Marko with the Marlboro BRM team in a BRM P153. They qualified ninth on the grid but suffered a loss of brake fluid in the last hour, slowing them to a sixth overall finish. The photo shows Galli exiting Druids Corner with the #34 Chevron B21-Ford of Brian Robinson and Francois Migault behind. At the conclusion of the 11-race series for the manufacturers’ title, Alfa Romeo had raced in only seven of the races with the highest finish of a second in the Targa Florio and no wins. Even so, they finished second, albeit a distant second, to Ferrari but ahead of Porsche, Lola, Chevron, Mirage and Matra for the manufacturers’ title.

Well known enthusiast and long-time California exotic car dealer Otto Zipper entered his T33/4 for Scooter Patrick at the Los Angeles Times 15th Annual Grand Prix on October 29, 1972 at the 2.54-mile Riverside International Raceway. Patrick maneuvers the car around the paddock in the photo.

Riverside was the ninth and final Canadian-American Challenge Cup Series race in 1972. The 4.0-liter V-8 powered Alfa was a standard FIA Group 6 car in all but its engine size, but it didn’t stand a chance against the unbelievable 5.0-liter Porsche 917-10K with its turbocharged flat-12 engine approaching 1,000-hp or the 9.0-liter (565-ci) 800-hp behemoth Denny Hulme had in his McLaren M20 only for Riverside. Patrick, who had driven to a seventh overall finish two weeks earlier at Laguna Seca, did well to qualify ahead of 13 of the more powerful Can-Am cars, including the Bryant Ti22, Lolas, McLarens and the 917PA/K. He finished ninth overall, completing 57 laps to the winner and newly crowned Can-Am champ George Follmer’s Porsche 917-10K (61 laps). In the photo, Patrick is shown alongside the larger, more powerful 8.3-liter McLaren M8FP (#55) of Chuck Parsons as they exit Turn 6 at Riverside.

The Interserie was Europe’s version of the Can-Am. At the Martini International Supersports event, the opening round of the 1974 Interserie Championship at Silverstone, England on May 12, 1974, Richard Pilkington was the entrant and driver of T33/3 (#84). It was reported by Autosport to be the 1971 BOAC 1,000-km winning car of Andrea de Adamich and Henri Pescarolo. Pilkington, the curator of the Totnes Motor Museum in England, was quite slow around the 2.932-mile Silverstone course, qualifying next to last on the grid of 27 qualifiers.

The Martini International Club Trophy event was a long-running event at Silverstone that began in 1961, won by well known drivers such as Chris Amon, Peter Gethin, Denny Hulme, Leo Kinnunen, Arturo Merzario and Michael Parkes. The T33/3 was in the Sport 500 class that was populated mainly with two-liter cars from Chevron and March and some three-liter cars. The photo shows the business end of Pilkington’s T33/3 with its three-liter V-8 engine.

In the 35-lap, 102.45-mile final, Pilkington finished 17th of 21 cars and five laps behind the winning Willi Kauhsen in a 4.5-liter Porsche 917-10K. It was the German Kauhsen who later brought money and sponsors to run Alfa’s racing team, and the cars, now powered by the flat-12 engine, won the manufacturers’ title in 1975 and 1977 for Alfa Romeo.

Jeff Allison is presently the editor of Prancing Horse, the quarterly magazine of the Ferrari Club of America. He’s previously served in editor positions with MG Abingdon Classics and Vintage Motorsport magazines, including editor of “Vintage Stuff” in Automobile magazine. Since 1976, he’s produced almost 400 articles in over 40 magazines and web sites relating to motorsport activities.

Alfas on the Track Part I

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Hezemens, de Adamich, Vaccarella? Find out below. Photo by Jeff Allison

Jeff Allison presents the first of a two-part tribute recognizing Alfa Romeo’s 100th anniversary with a selection of images of Alfas on the track at races from 1959 to 1974.

Words and Photos by Jeff Allison

Before I go further, I should disclose I’m the editor of Prancing Horse, the quarterly magazine of the Ferrari Club of America. Okay, give me a break—Ferraris are Italian aren’t they? In writing about Alfa Romeos, I’m exposing a long lingering soft spot in my heart. In Alfa’s 100th year, I wanted to do my part to recognize the cars with the unlikely name in Italian of Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili or A.L.F.A. that later joined forces with Società Anonima Ing. Nicola Romeo & Co. to become Alfa Romeo. [Read more…] about Alfas on the Track Part I

Lonely Lancia

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Disco Volante

By Montague Gammon III

Hard on the brakes at well over the speed limit in the left lane of Route 13 on the Eastern Shore, I spun the wheel of my slightly tatty Plymouth Horizon and screeched into the break in the median strip.

I think I heard curses from the driver of the pickup that had been behind me, as he went on his way after getting his cardio stimulation for the day.

You see, parked in the field across the road was a grey Lancia Aurelia B20 – considered the progenitor of the modern GT car.

OK – not exactly a sports car, but a true classic, meant for sporty driving.


The underside was rusted solid. The farmer who materialized to greet me – I didn’t see from where – told me he would sell it for $1000.

But what would I do with a “project car,’ with no garage on the campus of the boarding school where I worked and lived in Westchester, nor at my parents’ Norfolk apartment?

I was very far from being motivated enough or skilled enough to do the work myself, and surely not solvent enough to pay anyone else.

So I went on my way, and left a car that is worth a huge multiple of that one grand, even if it remains rusted solid 28 years later.

I needed a car I could drive, albeit chosen for fun. So I’m not kicking myself like I do about other missed automotive opportunities. but I do wonder what happened to the B20. I can’t believe it rusted away – I was surely not the only person driving up the Delmarva Peninsula who would recognize it. I have asked about it through online Lancia bulletin boards, but no one has answered me.

I guess the questions of how it came to be there, and where it went, will remain unanswered until the day I die.

By then I may be the last person in the world who remembers the sight of Pininfarina’s finely sculpted form, subtly curved and grey and graceful, standing alone in a flat plowed field, in the farm land of eastern Virginia.

This Week, of Interest

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Donohue by Linda Weldon; 512M by Richard Prince.

Michael Argetsinger to speak about Mark Donohue and the Ferrari 512M on September 4th in Watkins Glen

This week we review Michael Argetsinger’s books about Mark Donohue, who among many other things was responsible for setting up and driving the Kirk White Ferrari 512M at Sebring and Daytona. Of interest to our readers, Argetsinger will present an in-depth look at the legendary Penske Racing Ferrari 512M as raced by Mark Donohue, at the International Motor Racing Research Center on Saturday, Sept. 4. “No less a figure than Ferrari Chief Engineer Mauro Forghieri called this car ‘the finest prepared Ferrari I have ever seen,’” says Argetsinger. His talk – accompanied by many rare photographs will begin at 1 p.m. and is free and open to all and is located at 610 S. Decatur St., Watkins Glen. For more information: Mark Steigerwald, (607) 535-9044 or by email at mark@racingarchives.org.

Be sure to scroll all the way down for the five stories this week, posted from California to Virginia to Germany and find that photo of Donohue in a Bandini…

Alfas Star at Goodwood, July 2-4, 2010

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Remarkable Alfa scultpure at Goodwood.

Story and photos by Robert Neary

With a theme of VIVA VELOCE and a celebration of 100 years of Alfa Romeo, this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed was a truly wonderful event for the Italian car enthusiast. [Read more…] about Alfas Star at Goodwood, July 2-4, 2010

Racing the Alfa Giulietta in America Part I

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There's carbon on this sparkplug, the Alfa lady seems to be saying. Dunkirk 1958. Photo: Alix Lafontant.

By Carl Goodwin

A slow beginning
The Alfa Giulietta did not come on the sports car scene as Porsche did, with dramatic wins and startling performance. Instead, it kind of slid into the U.S. market, and began to race two years after its introduction in Italy. [Read more…] about Racing the Alfa Giulietta in America Part I

Racing the Alfa Giulietta in America Part II

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Following close: Detroit's Harry Constant in Alfa #84 is hounded by Chuck Stoddard in the #25 Alfa, with the rest of the Put-in-Bay field in the distance. Photo: Joe Brown

By Carl Goodwin

Stoddard Racing
Chuck Stoddard won national SCCA championships in 1959, 1961 and 1965 in Alfas. “The Giulietta didn’t get interesting,” he says, “until the Veloce was introduced. Bob Grossman was one of the first to run one. Max Hoffman was behind it – he pitted Porsche against Alfa. He would go to Porsche and tell them ‘The Speedsters are nice but the Giulietta is nicer.’ [Read more…] about Racing the Alfa Giulietta in America Part II

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