TRAVELINGWITHTOOLS

The shop on Paradise Drive was one of the few places in America where you might find more than one pre-war Alfa Romeo supercar on the same day. Phil Reilly & Co was a specialist in the cars Vittorio Janos designed for Alfa and in today’s image from June 24, 2008, we see the 8C 2900B MM owned by fashion icon Ralph Lauren.

I was fortunate to have built a number of Alfa six and eight cylinder engines in my time at Reilly’s, though on this particular car my work was more limited. The twin updraft Weber carburetors required some fettling and Ivan Zaremba did some drivability work to make the car perform as it should. My photos show the transaxle out of the car, but I don’t recall why.

This was one of four factory cars built for the 1938 Mille Miglia and it finished the race in second place driven by Carlo Pintacuda. He was beaten by Clemente Biondetti in a sister car, by a margin of only two seconds! The previous generation of Alfa racers had mechanically operated drum brakes, but the 2.9 had hydraulics. Apparently Pintacuda’s car had to stop while leading to bleed the brakes, and without that delay, he certainly would have won.

After the war, this car was briefly owned by American Grand Prix champion Phil Hill who raced the worn out old machine at Pebble Beach in 1951 when he was just starting his career.

Parked beside the 2.9 was another straight eight Alfa, an 8C 2300. This car was previously in the collection of Pink Floyd drummer, Nick Mason and its new owner took a sabbatical from his job to help us restore the car. Initially it was to be a mechanical freshening, but at some point it was decided to do a complete restoration, and the car was sent to Neil Twyman Ltd in England. It came back a few years later perfectly shiny and brand new.

This car has a wonderful provenance, being chassis 007, one of the first of its type made in 1931. It was a factory team car, piloted by Tazio Nuvolari on the Targa Florio in ’31. And it was the car that Enzo Ferrari himself drove in his last race as a driver before moving to managing Alfa Romeo’s racing squad full time.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that it was awarded the Gran Turismo award at Pebble Beach in 2019, which makes it the second Alfa that I’ve had a hand in to win that prize, after the Lyon family’s TZ2 in 2009.

This 2300 motor was my second 8C, after doing an 2900B in 2006. The 2300 was assembled and dynoed in 2009, when it made 205 lb/ft of torque and 185 HP at 5700 RPM, on 6.4 pounds of boost.

Some of the improvements that the 2900 had over the earlier version were monoblock cylinders, which eliminate the head gasket, a larger capacity supercharger, and twin updraft Webers replacing the single Memini downdraft carb.

In the background of the lead image is a very similar looking car, a one-off recreation. (These days it might be called a tribute car). It had a fabulous straight eight Alfa Romeo engine built by Westlake Engineering out of two, four cylinder Alfa 1750s, joined in the center.

The car itself was somewhat crude underneath the aluminum skin, but it was a pretty fair representation of Carrozzeria Touring’s Superleggera design.

So for just one day in the shop, a pretty nice selection of some of the most amazing cars ever built. Though Alfa Romeo certainly made some lovely cars after the war, in my opinion they never reached the heights that they did in the 1930s. It was a privilege to have been able to help preserve them for future generations.

Do you have a favorite Alfa? Share with us in the comments below….