Giulietta Spider Veloce 750F 1495*06380. This car is available out of Connecticut on eBay. Engine is not original and it needs a lot of help in all the usual areas, except it doesn’t appear to be too rusty. Presence of original Pininfarina hardtop is unusual and will add a few thousand bucks to the result.
So far so goo. Some bits are missing but they are included. Headlights look like the original Carello units
The car I’m working on will eventually retire to a leisurely life in Washington -a state well known for its rainfall. As such, I decided a good forced air system to heat the cabin and defog the windscreen was a good idea. I have the original fan impeller mounted on a modern motor in my Sprint and it works okay -you can feel a little moving air, but it’s not very impressive (admittedly most of my ducting is leaky original BS or ill-fitting replacement BS, so maybe an unfair test). Anyway, I was perusing the McMaster catalog when I found a 4″, 12 volt all-in-one in-line blower fan.
Applications: Sprint and sprint Veloce.
Failure mode: electric motor failure.
Current state of parts: repair original or find something to adapt in place of the original.
This is where the Air intake plenum lives. It’s designed to act as a ram-air and I imagine at over about 40 mph the air forced in is moving faster than the original fan could push it in. The rest under here looks pretty nice…
Last installment we looked at the heat exchanger box itself, this time I’ll focus on the bits that hook it up and control the incoming hot water: the heater valve and the push/pull cable that controls the valve. The first generation of Sprint’s had a heater valve (1483.54.711) that looked not far removed from a garden tap and you actually had to pop the hood and get out to turn on the flow of hot water to the heater core (if you didn’t realize you were going to want heat before you started out). At some point this was deemed a little old fashioned so a cable operated valve was put to use -cousins of which can be found on Alfa’s for many years to follow.
Valve failure mode(s): hardening of rubber diverter seal, oxidation leading to through pits or breakage, loss.
Control cable failure mode(s): still/difficult operation, cable breakage/cut leading to too short, loss.
The current state of the parts supply has:
1493.54.709 with new diaphragm seal installed. Like all rubber things, it just got hard and cracked after 50+ years. The inner plateau seals against the port in the valve body, keeping the water out of the core when not wanted, the outer ring seals to the body to keep it from leaking when it’s open.
Update 7/16/12: This car has appeared for sale on eBay in Europe out of Southern California from a Zero feedback seller. Scam? Hmmm.
Update 3/17/11: 75 bids resulted in $62,750. It’s no joke, game on for SS values!
Update 3/14/11: Bidding has reached $40,000 and reserve is met with 2 days to go. The suspense begins!
Giulia SS 10121*381379. This car is on eBay right now out of Texas. Bidding is at just shy of $30,000 with 4 days left as I write. This car is truly in ‘how you used to find them’ condition and frankly may be as much as $80,000 away from being a top money car, but for a capable DIY restorer that restoration number could get down to $40,000. Why do I mention this? See yesterdays post, which the seller references in their write up, a Giulietta SS sold for $140,000 at the Amelia Island auction. This is a great place to start, but it still has to be reduced to nuts, bolts and bare metal and built back out to get in the league that car is in. Then it has to find a buyer… Or it could be let alone, touched up, enjoyed and entered in the preservation class some day.
Looks great from this distance, through the lens of a camera after being hosed down. Note dent above headlight. Antennae has to go to.
Giulia Spider Veloce 10118*390417, 00121*01950. On eBay right now out of Novi Michigan -a city I’ve never heard of except as the source of a lot of eBay auctions for Alfa stuff. This car needs everything and is not for the faint of heart -but will yield an uncommon, very usable and valuable car when done. Some guys like the last of a breed, with all upgrades like disk brakes and more CC’s -if you’re one of those guys, this is the Spider for you. Me? I like the early stuff with small tail lights and drum brakes.
Lot’s of metal has been replaced along the wheel arch and rocker -looks to me like it will need touching up. Doesn’t look too scary here. I think lowering the soft top would be an improvement on presentation.
Update 5/31/12: Now on Craigslist. Look at the pictures at the bottom of this write up. Looks like the same car to me. I wonder what you would receive if you sent them $25K?
Update 9/20/10: A Giulia SS was listed on Craigslist this morning for $30,000 with pictures of this car. A scam? Borrowed pictures? I’m sure it will be answered before long…
5/20/09 Update: SOLD after 377 days! A guy I spoke to on the phone about this car last month, giving advise etc, has taken the plunge and bought this car. I told him exactly what I have been saying about this car all along, it’s probably a good car that everyone interested in an SS is tired of seeing for sale (you only get one shot at a good eBay auction). The selling price was around $45K and he seems very happy with the purchase. Look for it to be present at shows and events in Southern California. If anyone knows a good place to get keys made in Southern California post a comment as he needs to get door, trunk and glove box keys made.
I bet the seller of this SS would be happy if one of you kind readers would buy his 1965 Flavia Sport Zagato that is currently on Craigslist for $26,000 or trade.
3/31/09 Update: I think it will be a while before another car is featured here so many times. This car is on eBay again and this time it can be bought NOW for $47,500. Lets see if my ‘auction fatigue’ theory holds true. Now is your chance, you know you want it. I’ll offer the correct gauges to the new owner at 10% off.
3/18/09 Update: This car is now all repainted and spiffied up. Check it out on eBay now. $56,000 asking is big money but the car is pretty nice now.
Very nice work. The shut lines look good and the trim is all as it should be. Seller says he got it all ‘triple chromed’.
Update 5/6/12: I don’t remember if it failed to get any bids, or was ended early, but this car is back on eBay after a brief hiatus. Seller seems to have done some research and knows what they are selling this time around. Car looks a lot better now and the opening bid has gone from $500 to $6499. Such a deal.
Much better no? Check out the difference in descriptions, both are posted below.
Update 4/6/12: Car reached an underwhelming $15,099. I’ve heard of 00120 engines selling for about $10K, so this is pretty cheap for this car, regardless of how busted up you think it is.
Giulietta Sprint Speciale 10120*00440 This car is on eBay out of France right now. Seller commented a few days ago about the availability of this car, wanting to post here, but I was away from the internet for a few days and now here it is on eBay. The car is said to have been vandalized and stripped of parts, but it looks solid enough to be viable for someone, and since these have gone up in value, more parts -especially trim bits, are available new. Car received ‘final assembly’ in France by Renault -part of their trade agreement for car imports.
Nice color combo! Looks like that late 60′s GTV color, and the blacked out bumpers are an interesting touch. Kind of looks like the car was driven into a corner, creating angled dents at each headlight.
Update 3/27/12: This car sold for $1442 after 22 bids. A decent result for a rough looking example. Interest in these cars increases?
3/15/12: Glas 1700GT. First -pardon the non-Giulietta market post, but as I mentioned when I got my Glas GT, I plan on there being an occasional aside to the headlining act, and someone has to try and figure out what the market for these cars is. This car is on eBay out of Illinois. Looks to be too rusty to be a viable restoration candidate, but the sheet metal is ALL available and very inexpensive -too bad it’s as much work to weld up one of these as a Giulietta Sprint. There are no pictures of the engine -maybe they couldn’t get the hood open!
Pretty straight and complete looking. Shame about the door rust and, well, all the other rust too. Headlight rings are aluminum. Front bumper really makes the front end look a lot more complete than it looks without it.
Update 3/27/12: I think I would have sold this car for $8,100!
3/14/12: Giulietta Spider 10103 170922. Close to the polar opposite of yesterdays Spider Veloce is this crusty project on eBay right now out of Florida. It has all the bases covered: rust, dents, missing parts and the need for optimism on the part of the new owner -that said, it’s a pretty good parts car.
You can tell by the ride up front the engine is missing. If the rear was a little lower I’d say it was in the trunk. Note nose dent and rust in rocker. All in all though…
Update 4/6/12: 2 runs through ebay have resulted in the death spiral of ever lower auction results as buyer fatigue sets in and new projects steal the lime light. 5 more auctions and this will struggle to reach $5000 at this rate.
Giulia Spider 1600 10123 377929. This car is available now on eBay out of Florida. It was painted about 5 years ago, comes with a bunch of parts, and needs a lot of work. These are straight forward cars to work on -but it helps to either have worked on one before or have been the one who took it apart, so don’t rush headlong into this if neither of those applies to you, but I guess you have 6 days to think about it.
Nose looks pretty reasonable. There’s always at least 1 broken off bolt in a front bumper mount on a car like this. It’s hard to judge the quality of a white paint job via small pictures -especially after 5 years!
Update 1/28/12: 13 bids resulting in a sale price of $4550 is about right for an incomplete, rusty Spider. I wonder how many people are hoarding these kinds of cars, waiting for the day when they are all expensive -if it ever comes?
