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1929 Alfa Romeo 6C 1750 SS 3e série Zagato For Sale by Auction

French title
Chassis n° 0312955
Engine n° 0312930

- J-G Roger collection
- Matching numbers
- One of the most highly developed pre-war cars
- Fabulous potential entrant for historic races and rallyes

Background to the Alfa Romeo six cylinder cars

In the early 1920s, the design team in the Fiat racing department were the real innovators in Grand Prix engine design, led by Tranquillo Zerbi. After the new Tipo 804 had won both the main races of 1922 (the French Grand Prix at Strasburg and the Italian GP at Monza), one of the Fiat design team, Bertarione, was enticed across the English Channel to design the 1923 Sunbeam which then won the French Grand Prix at Tours, although the Fiats were the fastest cars having appeared with superchargers for the first time on a Grand Prix car.
At the end of 1923, another of the Fiat team left Turin but made a shorter journey, just to Alfa Romeo in Milan; he was Vittorio Jano who became one of the greatest of all Italian automotive engineers. Jano's first job was to design a new Grand Prix car for Alfa Romeo to replace the Merosi-designed P1 that had appeared only in practice at Monza for the Italian Grand Prix in 1923, where Fiat won convincingly.
Jano set to work immediately and the result was the P2, one of the most successful racing cars of the last two years of the formula restricting engines to 2 litres. The P2 was a straight eight designed from the beginning to be supercharged and it won both the French and Italian Grand Prix in 1924. Antonio Ascari (father of Alberto, the 1952/ 3 World Champion) was killed in a P2 at Montlhery during the 1925 French Grand Prix. The other cars were withdrawn but they won their other two main Grand Prix races that year at Spa and Monza.
Alfa Romeo decided not to build a car to the new 1500cc formula for 1926/ 7 but the P2 raced on successfully in formula libre events through 1929 and, in modified form, until the end of 1930. Instead, Alfa Romeo management had already put Jano to work to design a new straight six overhead camshaft road car, the Tipo 6C1500 (actually 62mm x 82mm for 1487cc) which was first shown at various Motor Shows around Europe in bare chassis form as early as late 1925. The chassis featured conventional semi-elliptic springs front and rear plus friction shock absorbers. Steering was a worm and wheel arrangement and the brakes were rod operated. Wheelbase was 2. 92m for the Sport and Super Sport but 3. 10m for cars fitted with more formal bodywork.

When we describe the design as "conventional", we have to acknowledge that there was already some "magic" in the way that conventional thinking had been applied to the design and execution of these chassis. Many special alloys were used in individual components and this allowed many of the parts to be far lighter than similar parts used previously and by other makers of the time. As time went by, this sort of engineering was applied more and more to each part of the car.

The engine came in three main forms - single ohc (Normale), twin ohc (Sport) and twin ohc with a blower (Super Sport); the latter required the engine to be moved back in the frame to allow for the blower to be driven off the nose of the crankshaft. The Normale had the cylinder block and head in one unit whereas the twin cam was usually fitted with a detachable head. However, some of the Super Sports ( the Mille Miglia Speciale) had block and head in one unit called 'testa fissa'. All types had five main bearings (except for a very few later testa fissa engines that had eight) and the overhead camshafts were driven via a vertical shaft at the rear of the block. Water pump and dynamo were also driven off the rear of the crankshaft via a set of cross-shaft gears. The cylinder head featured Jano's unique valve adjusting arrangement using a special tool.

The Normale started production in 1927 and was mostly fitted with formal bodywork. Such cars were quite slow by the standards of today with only 44 bhp at 4400 rpm propelling it to a maximum speed of about 65 mph. The Sport was usually fitted with open bodywork but more usually "drophead coupe" or "cabriolet" rather than "spider". Power was 54 bhp so top speed was up to 80 mph, pretty quick for that time. The Super Sport, as prepared for racing with the exceedingly rare testa fissa engines that were mostly kept in-house at Alfa Romeo, could reach almost 100 mph and power was 84 bhp at 5000 rpm. The fuel tank was located immediately behind the driver on these cars which, coupled with the revised engine location, gave a very balanced weight distribution and the marvellous handling associated with all Jano's 6C short chassis cars. There was initial sporting success in 1927 in local Italian events, especially hillclimbs and then Campari and Ramponi won the second Mille Miglia in 1928 driving one of these cars. Other successes followed all over Europe including at Spa and in the UK. Even after the 6C1750 appeared, uprated 6C1500s raced across Europe in the 1500cc class well into the 1930s with considerable success including a car owned by Count "Johnny" Lurani who described racing this car in his autobiography.

The 6C1750 model

For 1929, the engine was increased to 65x88 mm for a capacity of 1752cc and called the 6C1750. Again the chassis length was 2. 92m or 3. 10 m for the Turismo, Sport and the Gran Turismo but an additional chassis variant was introduced with the Super Sport (SS) version at 2. 745m with an engine that featured both supercharged and unsupercharged versions of the twin overhead cam unit. This latter chassis length had the same rearward engine location of the 6C1500 Super Sport. It was a simple exercise to add a blower to the unblown version if the car had been ordered initially in unblown form. Some of the works SS racing cars had testa fissa engines that were disguised by tack welding fake head stud nuts on to the top of the engine! These engines were only used in the works racing cars and very few were sold at a later date to customers and few therefore survive today.
Power was increased with the larger bore of these engines to 64 bhp for the unblown version of the SS and 85 bhp for the blown one, good for about 130 Kph and 145 Kph respectively. It should be remembered that there were few cars available to the public in 1929 that could do a genuine 100 mph.
Works 6C1750s cars won the Mille Miglia in both 1929 and 1930 and continued to win the up to 2 litre class in many sports car races across Europe in the following years including the class at Le Mans in 1930 and 1932.
Alfa Romeo started the 6C models in 1500cc form with two series of cars and then, somewhat confusingly, called the first 6C1750 cars the "third series". Changes were made throughout the production run with the designation continuing up to the 6th series in 1933 which included a 6C1900 (68mm x 88mm). When Alfa Romeo introduced their wonderful 8C2300 in 1931 it was initially stated that it was not for sale for road use but they relented and cars were sold up to and including 1934 when the successor to the 6C1750 was introduced, the 6C2300 (68mm x 100mm) which - for the first time at Alfa Romeo - had chain driven overhead camshafts. That was followed by the first independently suspended car, the 6C2300B using essentially the same engine.
In total, Alfa Romeo made over one thousand 6C1500s and over 2500 of the 6C1750 with 200 of the 6C1900. These are considerable numbers for hand assembled cars with coachbuilt bodies. It should be noted that the common usage of the Gran Sport designation for sporting and racing 6C1750s was only introduced with the 4th series cars in 1930, all the sporting 3rd series cars being Super Sport whether blown or unblown.

Chassis number 0312955

This chassis number belongs to a 6C 1750 Super Sport, dating from 1929, the very first year of production. Alfa Romeo archives tell us that there were only 121 examples of this third series Super Sport, numbered 0312851 to 0312971. According to the specialist historian John de Boer, author of the reference book " The Italian Registry ", #0312955 was delivered new on 18 September 1929, having been sold to a Mr Ghirardi of Fidenza, from the Parma region. In April 1930, ownership was transferred to a person described as a local mechanic. According to the research work of John de Boer thanks to a period photo of the car, even if this is indeed difficult to confirm 100 % that it is #0312955, it would be indeed a Zagato body that is more austere than other Zagato bodies built for standard customers. In mid-1933, #0312955 was sold to a new owner living in Reggio Emilia, where it was re-registered in July of that year. During or just after the Second Word War, the car would have been sold in England, as it was removed from the Italian registry in 1943, and we find the car during the 1960s in the English listing of Alfas, belonging to a certain D. O. Howell from Suffolk, England, and registered 'YC 7738'. The registry states that it had a cabriolet body by James Young and retained the original engine number. Was this Alfa re-bodied by James Young when it arrived in England, or is this an error in the period English registry? It is difficult to say. Either way, this 6C1750SS became the property of Giancarlo Varini in 2003 (a copy of the Targa in his name), and was then sold to a well-known French collector in 2005. The car then joined the collection of the current owner and has since been meticulously maintained by renowned specialist Pierre Lamoureux. He completely rebuilt the top end of the engine and original gearbox, as well as all the running gear. The original parts, such as the gears and original bronze Zenith carburettor will be delivered to the new owner. The current owner has participated in various rallies in France and drives the car regularly on the roads in the Loire.
The engine and chassis numbers, on various plaques, correspond to what is standard for the period. This 6C 1750 Super Sport has retained its chassis and original engine. As for the body, it is stamped 'Zagato' and corresponds in every way to a period body by the talented coachbuilder.

Originally Italian with a European history traced back to the 1960s, the future owner will be able to conduct further research to find out if the car was born with a Zagato bodywork. In any case, this is a wonderful opportunity to acquire
one of the rare surviving 6C 1750 Super Sport third series, with matching numbers, in a highly illustrious and desirable body.

For sale in our upcoming auction on February 9th in Paris.

900 000 - 1 300 000 €

More photos of the car can be viewed at the following link: - details above

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