CASSETTO

Volume 21- Number 9 - Newsletter of the Alfa Romeo Owners Club. September 1978

8. Which dealer in your area do you use for parts, repairs, service?
Is it an authorized A1fa Romeo dealer or an independent garage?
9. If you use an A1fa dealer, are you satisfied with the service?
Yes Why? -----------------------------------------------------
No Why? ---------------------------------------------
O. Do you find that it is generally easy to obtain parts? Yes No
1. How long have you been a member of the A1fa Romeo Owners' Club?
_ less than 1 year _ 1 - 3 years _ 3 - 5 years __ over 5 years
2. Why did you join the A1fa Romeo Owners' Club?
3. What activities do you enjoy most as a member of the Owners' Club?
_ Racing events
Other
Social __ Touring _ Gymkhana
---------------------------------------------------------
4. What sort of special merchandise would you like to see offered?
5. Do you have suggestions for other activities and services you'd like to see
in the Club?
6. What is your age?
under 20 20 - 30
7. Sex and Marital status?
Male
30 - 40
40 - 50 over 50
Female __ Single Married

-authoring Alfa Romeo--A History with Roy Slater.
a 22/90 is a valid one, but during most
the time [ owned the car [ was living in
st Anglia, which is a flat part of the
untry, so [ was not forever having to
e third gear. Maximum speed was over
mph, with 60 to 70 mph cruising, with
cellent road holding and steering and
od brakes.
During the whole time [ had the car
nly three serious things went wrong
'th it, and two of them were not the
r's fault. The first was when the
own wheel and pinion went, but it
med out this was due to bad assembly.
he second was trouble with the gearox,
but this happened when I was taki
g part in a competition organized by
t e Cambridge University Automobile
lub, with a test which took place on the
eep side of a quarry.
One had to do a timed run down the
ill, over a line, and then reverse back up
t e hill, still against the watch. Unfortuately,
when we were half way up the hill
i reverse, with the back axle jumping up
nd down, a tooth came off reverse gear,
ent between two other gears, and split
t e whole gearbox, so that oil poured out
f it I was towed home behind a 3-litre
entley, a new gear had to be made, and
me tricky welding carried out on the
luminium casing of the gearbox.
The only other serious trouble I had
'th the car was when the head came off
valve whilst I was travelling quite
owly, and very little damage was done
t the cylinder head or the piston.
I never raced my 22/90, and have
ever raced an Alfa Romeo, the nearest [
me to doing so being when [ took part
i a speed hill climb at Gurston Down in
iltshire driving Lord Montagu's blown
1I2-litre two seater, thought to have
een a team car at one time as it had one
f the rare fixed head engines-it was
gistered GH 1557, and had the bigger
irect drive blower. [ regret to say this
fa and I did not feature in the results, a ..
isfire setting in on the steepest part of .
e hill.
When the Alfa Romeo Section of the
intage Sports-Car Club was formed in
957, I was one of the founderembers,
and soon became friendly
'th Roy Slater, who was the second
ecretary of the Section.
In the late Fifties and early Sixties, my
rother and I became involved in racing
Single-seater E.R.A., and I wrote my
rst book describing our adventures with
is car entitled Radng an Historic Car,
ublished in 1960.
As Secretary of the Alfa Romeo Sec-
tion, Roy found he was always being
approached by book publishers about
an Alfa Romeo history, and one day he
said to me "you've written an
book-why not write one about Alfas
now?" The result was Alfa Romeo-A
History, which I wrote with the collaboration
and encouragement of Roy.
I was in the RAF when I wrote the
book, and it was an extremely interesting
undertaking, as so little had been published
on Alfa Romeo history at that time.
I did not even know who designed my
22/90, as none of the motoring books
then in existence gave the designer's
name. No article on Alfa history can now
be written without Giuseppe Merosi's
name being mentioned. Roy and I were
deeply indebted to Luigi Fusi, at the Alfa
works, for pretty well all the details of the
early cars, although the book had been
published before Signor Fusi came up
with the information that the 1914
Grand Prix Alfa had twin overhead camshafts,
previously we thought it had
pushrods. We were able to correct this in
the second edition, and it was a great
thrill for me to see a photograph of this
engine in Signor Fusi's own book, Le
Vetture Alfa Romeo da11910.
For a long time we had no details of
the specificiation of the 40/60 which
Campari was racing just after the
1914-1918 war, and I well remember
gazing at a photograph of it and wishing I
could open the hood and have a look at
the engine to find out what type of valve
operation it had!
Cassells seemed to give us a completely
free hand with the manuscript, it
could be as long or as short as we liked,
and it was quite a thrill when Roy and I
delivered the large completed manuscript
to Red Lion Square by hand, and
were given quite a reception by the
editorial staff.
Of all the books [ have written [ think [
am proudest of Alfa Romeo-A History
as it was the first complete history of a
very famous make, and the magazine
Road & Track once named it as one of
the twenty best motoring books in the
world. I still use the book as a reference,
as it seems to be unique in giving accounts
of a number of the lesser continental
motor races of the prewar and
early postwar years, as well as the major
ones. It is not perfect, of course, there are
still one or two errors in it, but nothing
desperately serious.
It had a good sale, and we did a revised
edition in 1969, five years after the
original publication, to bring it up to date,
but since then it has been allowed to go
out of print. This was probably due to a
reorganization at Cassells, after which
the two motoring enthusiasts on the
editorial staff, Bryen Gentry and
Nicholas Rower, left the firm.
In away, I suppose, I regret this, but if
it was kept in print it would need constant
revision as Alfas are still so very much in
production, and I don't know if I would
be up to the task of keeping it constantly
revised. In this respect it is simpler to
have written the history of a long-defunct
make!
Peter Hull found his 1927 RLSS 22/90
to be ideally suited to everyday driving
5

CASSETTO
Bernie Eccelstone's position as the head of
Brabham has gotten him in trouble with his colleagues
in the Formula One governing organization.
The rule-stretching he's accused of does make
the Brabham-Alfa BT-46 the talk of the Grand Prix
world, however.
The car, which should properly be designated by
some other system to avoid confusing it with the
ill-starred heat-exchanger BT-46, uses fans for cooling.
Competitors claim the suction is more for
ground effect, thus augmenting handling. The rules
are strict on aerodynamic tricks, so if that's their
purpose, they'd make the BT-46 illegal.
There's reason to believe they're for cooling. The
heat exchangers were doomed to failure because of
the limited surface on a Formula One car, yet
Brabham was committed to some dramatic new
way of coping with the Alfa's special temperature
requirements.
This BT-46 was driven to first by Niki Lauda at the
Swedish GPi garnering Brabham's first win in
nearly three years, the flat-Alfa's first ever, and
Lauda's first with Brabham.
Niki Lauda's victory in the Swedish Grand Prix
coincides nicely with the announcement that
Motorbooks International of Osceola, Wisconsin
has published his new book, My Years With Ferrari,
on August 7. Lauda discusses the
"Byzantine" politics of the Ferrari team, his decision
not to drive in the 1976 Japanese Grand Prix,
and other facets of his life.
The 240-page book has 16 color and 29 black
and white photos. It will sell in bookstores at
$12.95.
This photograph by Fred DiMatteo won a miniature
Alfa Montreal for him in a photo contest
conducted by the Alfa Owners of New England. It
shows his 1975 Alfetta sedan and 1971 1750
Spider in Fred's driveway in Sudbury, Massachusetts
last Fall. Fred used a Pentax KM with Kodachrome
to make the shot, which edged out the work
of 25 other competitors from AONE.
6
CASSETTO
Volume one, number one of The International
Newsletter from International Autoparts, Inc., has
been published, billing itself as a monthly advisory of
"new or discontinued items, special sales, and general
news" to supplement the company's two annual
catalogues. The newsletter will go only to International
customers of record.
While not devoted exclUSively to Alfa Romeos
(Lancias and Rats receive coverage in the first issue,
too) the most unusual feature for a parts house
publication is a public classified ads section covering
the same cars. The first issue also offers sale prices on
Konis, Super Sprint exhaust systems, and leather
shift boots.
International Autoparts is at 50 West Main Street,
Rockaway, New Jersey 07866.
United States owners are invited to attend
AlfaMeet '78, the annual meeting of the
Alfa Romeo Club of Canada, at Belleville,
Ontario on September 15, 16, and 17. Belleville
is two hours east of Toronto.
The AlfaMeet program includes time
trials at Nelson International race course
near the hotel, a concours, slalom, and
awards ceremony. A special event is a race
sponsored by the Vintage Racing Association
of Canada open to pre-1962 Alfas and
drivers with VSSCA or SCCA licenses. Roll
bars are not required in VSSCA races.
For further information on the meeting
program, contact Jim McMahon at (613)
829-6639, for more on the vintage race, contact
Richard Stafferton at (416) 485-4220; or
write to the ARCC at P.O. Box 62, Station Q,
Toronto, Ontario M4T 2L7.

CASSETTO
Thirteen Alfa owners traveled to Milan under
the tutelage of Fred DiMatteo of the Alfa Owners
of New England recently and there were treated
to elaborate and memorable tours by Alfa
Romeo, SpA, according to Lou and Sue Liserani
writing in Alfacionada, the newsletter of the Alfa
Romeo Owners of Southern California. They
saw Alfettas being assembled, spider bodies arriving
from Pininfarina, and the new Museum at
Arese. "It was very easy to shoot two rolls of
36-exposure film in 30 minutes," they report.
The latest issue of Malcolm S. Harris l
6C 2500
Register newsletter makes a genuine contribution to
the literature of the marque with an account of the
Petacci Alfa (shown here) now owned by Ron Keno
of Mohawk, New York. Ron has been busy researching
the car's interesting history since he purchased it
from Albert Harris in 1970.
To escape Italian partisans searching for
Mussolini, the dictator; his mistress, Claretta
Petacci; and her brother and his family fled Milan in
April 1945 in the 1939 6C 2500 escorted by an
armored car and posing as the entourage of the
Spanish ambassador to Italy. Mussoli ni was dressed
as a German corporal, but his disguise was found
out in the town of Dongo.
The rest is, of course, grusome history.
At the suggestion of Mussol i ni biographer
Richard Collier, Ron first contacted Franz Spogler,
who had been assigned by the Germans to protect
and watch Petacci during the War. In 1975 Spogler
visited Ron in Mohawk and both became convinced
Ron's car was indeed the Petacci Alfa when Spogler
found a set of tools he remembered buying in 1943
still lodged in the trunk.
Ron intends now to restore the car to the condition
it was in when it carried II Duce to his death.
7
CASSETTO
Alfa Owners of New England are getting a lot of
track time in their cars these days: seven of them
participated in a special Alfa day in the Scotti
School of Defensive Driving recently and the next
weekend several me·mbers joined with Lancia
clubbers to caravan to Lime Rock for time trails
sponsored by the Connecticut Chapter of the Alfa
Romeo Owners Club, according to VelocisBma,
the AONE newsletter.
Many defensive driving techniques are identical
to performance driving instruction except that
there is a 70 m.p.h. limit on the straights. According
to Howard Rockstad, a main feature of the
program is the hrake turning maneuver, and regularity
runs were won by Mike Nawlicke in his
Alfetta.
Howard feels the Lime Rock time trials were run
well this year and commented favorably on the
amount of time on the track afforded participants.
If you own a Giulia TZ you'll want to be
sure it is included in George Carl Pezold's
Directory of Owners covering these Alfas;
but if you don't, you'll have to locate and
acquire one in order to obtain this
limited-distribution book.
The well-organized register contains 56
TZs listed by serial number and noting
former owners, condition, and special features.
Eighteen of the cars are in the
United States and three are in Canada, according
to the compilers. George E. Hopkins,
Jr., took this picture of the TZ then
owned by Sam Smith at the 1974 Gude
Nursery show of the Vintage Sports Car
Collectors Society of America, Inc.
George Pezold welcomes comments and
inquiries at 120 Main Street, Huntington,
New York 11743; (516) 427-0100.

Oneofa eee
The Alfa Romeo Club really is. And it's to be congratulated.
Twenty years of service to the Alfa Community. Happy
Anniversary from all of us at International Auto.
And when it comes to Service, we're no stranger either. We've
been sending the highest quality Alfa parts and accessories (at
the lowest possible price) east, west, north and south to hundreds
of Alfa owners.
Total satisfaction has helped us grow and thanks to you and
our policy, we're growing bigger every day.
Simply stated, our trademark has become a symbol of trust.
Perhaps that's why, like the Alfa Owner and the Alfa Club,
International Auto Parts is one of a kind.
10
50.fST lAIN SI.
RDCUIII 1I.d. OlBll
2DI·8Z7· an

Grille Badge $13.00
P.O. Box 331, Northbrook, IL 60062
MOBB CLASSIFIED
FOR SALE: 1969 1750 Spider. Repainted
Iberian red, new white
softtop, black Dynaplastics hardtop,
Konis, Holley racing fuel pump, new
Super Sprint exhaust. Good mechanical
and cosmetic condition with only
64,000 miles. Aski ng $2,850. Also, GT A
headers (2 pieces) $75. Gil Henyon,
RRl, Box 86A, Skillman, NJ 08558;
(609) 466-2545 evenings, (201) 524-5587
days.
FOR SALE: 1969 Alfa Romeo GT Jr.,
new interior, black paint, tires, super
sprint exhaust in excellent condition,
no rust, runs great! (317) 636-
3151. after 5 (317) 924-3060. Will send
photo's. Make offer.
FOR SALE: Beautiful 1963 Spider
type 10123. Outstanding condition inside
and out after restoration. Tonneau,
car cover, new vinyl top. Workshop
and driver manuals. $4,000.
Brian Taylor, 1836 Highland Drive,
Newport Beach, CA 92660. (714) 646-
'I 3544.
FOR SALE: 1974 Spider, red, 29K
miles, black interior. rust proofed,
immaculate. $5,275. 1974 Spider,
hardtop. black, barely used. $300.
" 1969 Berlina. red, black interior, duel
, Webers. Konis, Abarth, engine very
powerful, rebuilt top end, burns
some oil, body rust. $800. (617) 899-
4976 evening.
FOR SALE: Alfa Romeo 1973. G.T.V.,
am/fm Blaupunkt stereo, air. metallic
silver, black interior, very low
mileage. Excellent condition
throughout. $3,750. Victor S. Cerami.
122 Davison Avenue, Oceanside, NY
11572.
4TH ANNUAL MIDWEST ALFA I plan to enter my
FLEA MARKET &
CONCOURS D'ELEGANCE
September 17, 1978. 9:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m.
YELLOW SPRINGS, OHIO
Come to BUY! • Come to SELL! • Come to SHOW!
• Parts - Accessories - Cars
• Technical assistant to answer questions.
• 10C beer on hand - bring your own food.
• Concours judging starts at 1 :00 p. m.; categories: open cars, closed cars, special
interest cars; open to any make, but in case of ties, the nod goes to Alfas.
Costly and attractive trophies shall be awarded.
• Sponsored by Ohio Valley A.R.O.C., contact: Geoff Gelke, 2365 Auburn
Cincinnati, Ohio 45219,513-721-7178.
• Location: find Dayton. Ohio on your map; Yellow Springs is about 25 miles
due east, located on Route 68. The address is: 830 Xenia Ave. (Rt. 68). You
can't miss it.
• General Admission: $3.00/ car.
11
FOR SALE: 1975 Alfetta Sedan.
Michelins, am/fm Panasonic. 30,000
miles, no rust. Excellent condition.
No reasonable offer refused. C.W.
Shane. 110 Atlanta Place, Pittsburgh,
PA 15228; (412) 343-2829.
FOR SALE: 1973 GTV 2000. Aubergine
with natural (tan) interior. Bilsteins,
Cibie lights, Cromodora wheels
with 195nO-14 Vieth tires, Panasonic
am/fm casette stereo, much, much
more. Excellent condition, recently
repainted. Asking $6,800. Call (203)
442-1601. New London, CT 06320.
FOR SALE: 1972 GTV 2000. new Alfa
red lacquer, air, Konis, Cibie, BWA,
18MO ZX, am-fin, Bosch pump, Fiat
124 fan conversion, 61,000 miles, very
good condition. $4,200. Marc Gomillion,
343 Harmon, San Antonio, TX
78209; (512) 828-5876.
FOR SALE: Weber carburators, manifold,
accelerator pedal and linkage
for 1750. In good condition. Asking
price $250.00. Tom Donato, 6307
Ladauversiere, St. Leonard P.Q.
Canada; (514) 255-7227.
WANTED: 1600 Veloce headers (101
chassis). Part number
10121.07.071,.072. Will pay top dollar
for good used or new set. Call Gary
collect at: (714) 548-1236, days; (714)
544-4689, evenings/weekends.
FOR SALE: 1971 GTV. Burgundy inside
and out. 5,000 miles on engine
rebuild. 2 years on professional repaint,
Michellin's, ShankleSure­
Start. Steve Szilvagyi, 1654 Ann
Street, East Lansing, MI 48823. Phone
(days); (517) 373-3770.
on September 17, 1978
Enclosed is $3.00 ____ _
NAME ____________________ _
ADDRESS, ________________ _
CITY ______________________ _
STATE ____________________ _
Zlp· _________ PHONE. _______ _
Send to:
GEOFFGELKE
2365 Auburn Ave.
Cincinnati, Ohio 45219