TRAVELINGWITHTOOLS

The Alfa Romeo TZ2 restoration was finished on this day, a few days after my 40th birthday. This team portrait includes, from left to right, Tom Smith, Ivan Zaremba, me, Chuck Mathewson and Rolly Boorman. Others worked to complete this project too; I think Phil Reilly & Co had around 12 or 13 employees at the time. Not to mention the other firms that did body and paint (Frank Zucchi, Scoggins Fiberglass) the motor (Norman Racing Group) and upholstery (Franzini Bros).

The very next next day, the car was being driven by Bill Lyons and his Dad “The General” on the Tour d’Elegance, which is a run down the Pacific Coast Highway and back as a part of the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. I was charged with transporting the car from Corte Madera to Pebble Beach and then to drive the chase truck on the tour in case anything went sideways.

The only thing that went sideways was me, when I got lost on a tiny one lane road in Ivan’s Suburban, and then high centered the rear axle on a boulder just off the road when I tried to turn it around! I had to pull out the jack that I brought for the Alfa to lift the truck off the rock and dig it out so I could get free before the Tour continued back north from their southern-end rest stop. Oh, what fun.

Between the Tour and the Concours on Sunday, the car’s brand new paint got an over-the-top rub down in a garage in Carmel Valley, a place owned by a friend of the Lyons.

I had quite an awful run with that Suburban. After the high-centering incident, I also managed to demolish a portion of low brick wall that I didn’t see behind me. And to top it off, I was designated driver to dinner at the Baja Cantina one night that year, where I rubbed the mirror on a car next to me in a tight parking spot! Ugh, to think I was once a competitive racing driver… NHKA Open Enduro champion of 1998! Ha.

Digging through the research files for this post, I learned that this Alfa has been to Pebble Beach three times now, once more than me! It had its first visit in 1985, when its then owner, Stephen Forrestall raced it at the Monterey Historics and was invited to represent the racers at Pebble.

24 years later, I accompanied it to Pebble in 2009, where it was awarded the Gran Turismo trophy and was later digitized to be a playable car in the video game.

13 years on, I visited the Concours d’Elegance for the third time in 2022, to see the Talbot Lago that I worked on make its debut, and I was surprised to see Bill Lyons with the TZ on the green for the third time! It was entered in the 24 Hours of LeMans Centennial class and took second place, behind a Porsche 935, of all things. I suppose the fact that the Alfa blew its engine at LeMans may have pushed it to finish behind a car that won the event. I managed to miss getting a photo, but here’s a look courtesy of Pebble’s YouTube live stream.

I’m having trouble getting the 3 hour video to start at the right point… Try this link to skip to the clip, or scroll to 1:50.00.

Here’s a selection of images from the restoration process. I’m amazed at how smoothly it went, even though we all worked some crazy hours to get it done on time. Ivan’s exemplary skills at organizing tasks and herding cats was the secret sauce that ensured it was done on time. The car rolled into the shop on August 28, 2007 and was out the door in less than two years.

This day was the result of a lot of teamwork, caffeine and late nights at 5842 Paradise Drive. In the end, a successful project and one to be proud of.