Museo Stradale

Dominic's Auto Museum
One man's passionate quest to survey finest motorcars in the world

Photographed: Saint Michael's Concours d'Elegance, 2008. Owner: Mark Gessler

A Significant Body of Work: I often look at Touring as the grand masters of custom coachwork—the traditionalists who knew what styles to adopt and when to do so. Pictured here is one of their most significant efforts, a closed ala spessa design integrating all formal elements into a flowing, undulating shape. The period quality of the sheetmetal folds do not deceive, but the overall effect still forms an aberrant visage. Already in 1939, Touring could deal with linearity, something the automotive world would later latch onto with an unwavering grip.

While the overall design is not so graceful or together as the 8C 2900 Le Mans Berlinetta from the previous racing season, it does portend the road-going 6C 2500 SS set to emerge in the post-War era as one of the first exclusive grand touring cars. Similarly, this car shows the way toward the first widely recognized Ferrari cars—those developed from the original 125 C into the great 166, many of which fell under the auspices of Touring to make desireable by virtue of aesthetics, not merely performance. This partnership fielded an open car—later to be shoved into immortal prose by the motoring press as the Barchetta, or 'little boat,'—a sports berlinetta, and a grand touring version.

We should further note that the Cisitalia 202 Stabilimenti Farina Coupe, which so often garners praise as the first modern era automobile design, is just a part of the story. Beautiful as the 202 is, the classic era cars of Alfa Romeo set the precedent, and this is to say nothing of the Czechoslovakian Tatra company, Stout Scarab, or various other obscure marques of the classic era. Even Cisitalia was a rather small affair, thereby resting the great moniker of ala spessa design onto the shoulders of Alfa Romeo, at least as far as major European auto manufacturers are concerned.

Competition Berlinetta: The 1939 international motorsport regulation did away with supercharging, which spelled a particular challenge for Alfa Romeo, whose success was long indebted to big puff. From the 220 brake horsepower 8C 2900 series of 1937 and '38, the 6C 2500 was perhaps underpowered. The block was developed out of 1934's 6C 2300, enlarged and turning on a revised seven main bearing crank. With triple Weber carburetion, the motor could push 120 brake horsepower when properly tuned, still a century mark shy of the great 8C, though it is likely output figures in competition well exceeded factory claims.

In sum, the 6-cylinder dual overhead cam motor came from well tested stock, but the new package was somewhat lacking. Compared to the BMW 328 the Alfa was not too far ahead on power but nearly 500 lbs overweight. Furthermore, development time was not available for these new machines—the 1939 Le Mans Berlinetta is said to have arrived at Le Sarthe just in time for race inspection, having driven there from Milan on public roads—and small mechanical glitches kept them from achieving success in both the Le Mans 24 Hours, and the Mille Miglia. Clearly this was not the direction Alfa wished to head, particularly after such a successful run of sports cars through the classic era. Subsequently, the classic Alfa apogee remains 1938, and these late 1939 and 1940 cars are significant on the merits of their styling more so than their historic provenance or technical advancement.

Rarity: Less than 20 of the Tipo 256 were produced; many of these received open spyder coachwork, which was lighter than the closed aerodynamic body, and believed to be less of a special performance feature due to its ubiquity. Aerodynamics, little as was known about the field, was the new flavor of advanced racing technology—something designers adopted in small ways hither and tither, as in cowls over front suspension components on Grand Prix cars—and so a project of more complete aerodynamic control produced the feeling of an experimental car.

In any case, we must note the coachwork of Touring's aerodynamic exercises is an approximation. So too, the spyder bodies from this period of 1939-1940 were largely chopped, destroyed, and subsequently cobbled back together from memories and photographs. It is, for all intents and purposes, a strange period for the Alfisti, featuring cars that were perhaps not so revered and not well preserved. Yet, they remain fascinating for their quirks—truly interesting markers of this period of conflagration on the eve of World War II—and I hope to uncover more of what was, and what wasn't as far as these lost years are concerned.

One final note on numerology: The '256' desgination is worked out identically to Fiat era Ferrari cars, where the first two digits impart the capacity in litres, (2.5 litres), while the last digit is the number of cylinders, (six). The Tipo description, however, does not play a roll in Alfa's naming convention, and appears perhaps most notably on the 308-C of 1939. I include the 'Tipo 256' designation in the full model name of this car because it separates this series, designed for competition, from the regular 6C 2500 production series.

Sources:

Ultimatecarpage.com: So often a top-notch resource, and here with a piece on a sister car, a recreation of the 6C 2500 SS Le Mans Berlinetta, perhaps not aesthetically exemplary, leaving aside matters of historical accuracy.

Supercars.net: Displaying a piece on the Spyder variant of the Tipo 256

QV500: Serious information on the 166 MM Series, this site will require some time for those truly interested

 

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