This 1940 Alfa Romeo 6C2500 was built as the spasms of war seized Europe, and was completed by Hermann Graber Carrosserie in Wichtrach, Switzerland. For Alfa Romeo, the 2500 series represented the first of something and the last of something. It was the last Alfa to be offered primarily in chassis form for custom bodywork by specialists, and it was the last 6 cylinder series production model until 1962. In the postwar period, it became the first Alfa to be offered in sizable numbers with standard bodywork made at the Alfa factory in Milano; around 680 of the Freccia D'Oro (Golden Arrow) coupe were sold from 1947 to 1952. Then Alfa shut down production of the 6C cars in favor of the newer and smaller 4 cylinder 1900 model, having concluded that their future lay in mass production. In Switzerland, however, the government aimed to keep their native coach building industry alive by offering to drop the import tariffs on bare chassis imported for installation of bodies designed and built by firms like Graber, Langenthal, Worblaufen and Beutler. The policy was begun before the war and continued afterward, and it resulted in some remarkable bodywork on makes as diverse as Duesenberg, Bugatti, Delahaye, Talbot, Chrysler, Alvis and Studebaker.
Dennis Varni's 6C is quite a specimen beyond its carefully-detailed and unique body work. Like all Alfa 6C 2500s, it features a dual overhead cam engine design with valves inclined to form hemispherical combustion chambers in an aluminum head. The 6C was offered in single or triple-carbureted form; this is the higher performance version. Suspension is independent at the front, and by a De Dion tube at the rear. Most Graber Alfas were built before the war. By the mid-1950s, Graber had become the Swiss agent for the English Alvis, and concentrated most of his coachwork efforts on that chassis.* Hermann Graber built about 800 car bodies from 1925 to 1970, but apparently only one Alfa Romeo in this style.
*Footnote: The Graber Alvis was featured with other Graber designs in our post for 1/22/16.
Photo credits: All photos are by the author, who thanks Dennis Varni for the tour of his garage, and in particular for opening up this unique Alfa for inspection.
Love the engine, and that Swiss bodywork is something! This is probably one of the more restrained bodies offered on the car.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a kid in LA, the couple across the street had matching late-40s 2500 Pinin Farina cabrios...to go with their popcorn-popper 3 cylinder DKW.
ReplyDeleteA 15-cylinder collection.
You'll appreciate this from the start of a petrolicious article I just read...
ReplyDeleteAs Petrolisti, we all wear an invisible, yet easily recognizable badge identifying ourselves as such. Self-bestowed, and earned through actions like choosing impractical, dangerous, cantankerous modes of personal transportation over more conventional, airbagged and crumplezoned ones, spending our dispensable income and time keeping up with a constant stream of maintenance needs, mitigating rust, expensively and painstakingly eeking out modest performance gains only to be passed by a bone stock 2010 Corolla driven by a disengaged phlebotomist, ruining clothes through impromptu roadside repairs, constantly smelling like a combination electrical fire/oil spill, suffering for our collective superb taste and elevated sense of fun and adventure—none of it matters, according to Jeremy Clarkson, if you’ve never made said sacrifices at the altar of Alfa.
I'd say it pretty much sums it up...
Full article here...
ReplyDeletehttps://petrolicious.com/articles/alfa-s-gtv6-makes-exotic-noises-for-used-econobox-cash
Belatedly replying to this after a crazy couple of weeks (never remodel your kitchen if you want quality time with your old car). The analogy I come back to with old cars vs. modern ones is that even though we can now use digital synthesizers to make nearly any musical sound imaginable, lots of people still prefer to play (and listen to) real musical instruments. It's kind of addictive, a bit like those features on "petrolicious"...
ReplyDelete