Photos from 1966 to present
Below are before and after photos of my first Alfa, a 1959 Spider Nearly Normale with its original 1300 engine. The pictures were taken circa 1966. The new paint job doesn’t show well in the third photo down, but it’s metallic silver. Anyone know what happened to my old Spider, California license NDS 576? Even though Giulietta was only seven years old in ’66, the poor little thing had suffered a dinged front, cancer of the paint on most surfaces (no rust), and the interior was shot. Fortunately, it was in excellent mechanical condition.
Below: The 1967 GTV that’s plastered all over these pages was white when I bought it in 1983. I didn’t care for the original, faded appliance white (Bianco Spino), so in 1984 paid for a bare-metal respray, changing the color to BMW Baltic Blue.. The same car became 501 red, after yet another bare-metal respray. In 2018 I sold the car to a New York man who painted it a very nice shade of blue. The Alfa is gone, but its memories linger on.
I bought the multi-color, primer patched GTC shown below in 1983, stripped it, then took it to a place that dipped the entire shell in a chemical stripper. As you can see, it had a rust-free body. That’s about as far as I got before becoming sidetracked on the restoration of the ’67 GTV. Below is a black & white thatshows how to keep three Alfas in a standard two-car garage: make one levitate (that’s it hanging over the 1971 Spider). The GTC was finally restored in southern California in 2003 or 2004, after changing hands at least twice more. Honest folks, it really is more cost effective to purchase the best car you can afford, rather a beater that needs everything. Just not as much fun.
The 1971 Spider Father-Daughter Project
After the enjoyment of restoring the ’67 GTV, I proposed building a 1971 Spider for our daughter Hillarie, if she would help with the cost and the work. She readily agreed and held up her side of the bargain. The result is shown below, a car she was pleased to drive through high school and college. Some of the photos show her 1750 Spider in the driveway next to my, by now, 1750 GTV. It’s ironic that both cars were originally purchased as parts cars for the GTC that I never finished. I hope the Spider is still being well cared for. We sold it after Hill finished college and was heading out of state to her first teaching job. The “NOSPDRS” license plate was a joke. Our daughter is not fond of arachnids.
