Color photos by www.rprincephoto.com
By Pete Vack
This article originally appeared in VeloceToday on September 10th, 2008. The cars featured here may have changed hands since.
Peter Greenfield is in the enviable position of owning and racing not one, but two pre-war Alfa Romeo Grand Prix cars. Furthermore, chassis 50013 which he acquired from Peter Giddings in 2005, is the only complete, original Tipo 8c35 in the world.
He keeps the crown jewel–50013– for very special events such as the upcoming Laguna Seca event at Monterey where he will have it out for the Shell Ferrari Historics. For the race at Mt. Tremblant and most other vintage races, Peter drives a ‘clone’, which is referred to as 8c35 50015C, the “C” standing for clone. This car was built up from the parts of a vehicle obtained from South America, and uses an engine found by Peter Giddings years ago. Giddings explains: “The clone’s “C” section chassis came out of Argentina, and Paul Grist built a car up around it, using the transaxle out of the dismantled Rex Mays Tipo C (#50012), and fitted with engine #50015, which engine I used to own when it was shoe-horned into a 1932 Alfa Romeo Monza!” Giddings says “shoe-horned” because whilst the 2.3 8c and 3.8 8c engines look similar, the dual supercharged 3.8 is somewhat longer than the single supercharged 2.3.
Apparently the actual 8C35 chassis numbered 50015 has long disappeared, so something useful was done with the engine, based on the fact that Grist had access to 50013 and used it for comparisons. Thus, 50015 “C” was born.
Peter Giddings in the ex Rex Mays car, 50012, leads Greenfield's clone at Tremblant in 2008.