[alfa] Technomagnesio musings

["John Hertzman" <johnhertzman@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Biba expressed an interest (both in ad-10-344 and in an off-digest note to me) in using the repro vintage alloy Alfa wheels (GTA, TZ, TI Super, etc) for a Duetto (natch!) application, mentioning "Techno Magnesia used to make these wheels, but not any more.  I believe they went bust a few years ago so I doubt anyone has any of their wheels left on the shelf."
 
Businesses and their associated facilities, reputations, and names are too fungible for my attempts at understanding (witness the melding of Saab, Holden, Opel, Chevrolet, Alfa and who knows what others as GM Epsilon variants) but I believe Technomagnesio still thrives, at least in name. My recollection is that it was originally a name-change (and possibly expansion) of Cromodora, who made many different basic styles of injection-molded magnesium wheels (seventeen, in the catalog I have) in many different sizes, offsets, and bolt circles for many different OEMs and the aftermarket, including a more precise industrially produced version of the 'Turbina' style which Campagnolo had made for Alfa in a visually cruder form on a more artisanal craft-shop level. Then at some time in the eighties Technomagnesio and Speedline, who made (and I believe still make) many original-equipment Alfa wheels, became associated with MIM, yet another wheelmaker, so that the three and perhaps others became a 'General Motors' of the wheel market. Exactly who 'went bust', who merged, who was the core business with a name-change, or who was absorbed and survived as a name only, would be hard for any outsider to say, but Technomagnesio will probably survive at least as a brand name (like Alfa or Oldsmobile) as long as the name is an asset rather than a liability.
 
The availability of a particular vintage style at any particular time is a different question, but the small-volume OEM market and the aftermarket seem to be well served (perhaps particularly in Italy) by manufacturers who can run small batches of visually distinct products IF there is a profitable market for them. (Witness ReOriginals.)
 
Some references to these wheels, like Wille's in 10-344, seem implicitly somewhat derogative because they are 'reproductions'. In comparative photos I have seen of the GTA-style wheels there are visible differences on the back-side, with structural ribs where the originals were smooth. My overall impression is that the new ones are probably better than the 'originals'  better engineered, probably better quality manufacture, and probably made by what is arguably the original manufacturer, given the fluidity of company mergers and reorganizations. My only quibble about Biba's proposed application concerns the probability of these wheels having been used on a Duetto when they were fairly new  is it something an owner might have done in the sixties, or gilding the lilly? The Duetto parts book does list, along with two brands of steel wheels, the 5 x 15 and 5.5 x 15 Campagnolos (not Cromodora/Technomagnesio) originally used on the TI Super and then on the TZ; the Sprint GT parts book lists a much wider variety of wheels  three brands of steel wheels, three widths of 15" Campagnolo alloys, and for the GTA four widths of 14" alloys, brand unspecified but I assume Cromodora/Technomagnesio, which to my prejudiced mind reflects the coupes being a more serious choice as a performance-car at that time than the Spiders.
 
Owner's choice, of course; some Duetto buyers (but I doubt many) may have bought the Campagnolos, and it would have been chronologically possible to get GTA wheels for use on a new Duetto. Personally I'm more comfortable with more likely choices. I once went to a concours where practically every classic Packard phaeton present had a Lalique radiator ornament  probably more Lalique radiator caps than there had ever been in the country. They would have been a rare but not too outlandish embellishment on a sophisticated and luxurious high-Franc Delage, far less likely on a Bugatti, possible on a Packard, but twenty in one parking lot? I don't think so. Classicism, particularly in an alien context, celebrates a discriminating excellence which once was, but exaggerated it too easily becomes a parvenu's travesty. Better, I think, to play it straight, but that is my hang-up.
 
Enjoy yours,
 
John H.
Raleigh N.C. 
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