Lottery Sprints and Giulia Speciales

[JHertzman@domain.elided]

In AD7-801 Tony Stevens writes: 

"I heard a story years ago that there was never a plan to build a
Giulia SS. The story goes that it came about because there were so many
unsold Giulietta SS bodies awaiting completion when the Giulia 101 was
announced that completing them as a Giulia SS seemed the logical thing
to do. True or false? The apparent greater corrosion encountered with
the Giula SS could indicate that the bodies were allowed to "mature"
before completion......"

If so, it would represent monumentally poor planning on somebody's part, to 
have more leftover bodies lying around at the end of the production run than 
had been sold from inception. By Fusi's numbers, there were 1,366 Giulietta 
Sprint Speciales built over a six-year period, and 1,400 Giulia Sprint 
Speciales built in the following four years:

Giulietta SS:
1957	  5
1958	 11
1959	195
1960	200
1961	742
1962	213
		1,366
Giulia SS:
1963	620
1964	676
1965	103
1966	  1
		1,400

Tony's other question was " The Lottery Giulietta Sprint - has anyone 
actually seen one, how many were built? My Italian connections seem to know 
little about them other than a same myths read & heard for many years, 
together with a few press photos."

Griff Borgeson's account of the development of the Sprint was published in 
1964; he was much more a solid historian than rumor-monger, and he had photos 
and other information from participants which Alfa did not have. The lottery 
had not been for Sprints, but for Giuliettas- the berlinas which Alfa was not 
yet ready to build. The numbers of cars promised certainly would have been 
widely known at the time of the securities promotion to which the lottery was 
an adjunct. Borgeson does not give the exact dumber, but does refer to "a 
couple of hundred free cars". The Sprint came into being to fulfill the 
lottery promises, but there is no reason for there to have been a break 
between the "lottery" cars and the following production. Sprint chassis 
numbers started with 00011 in 1954, and reached 01438 during 1955, I would 
assume that any with numbers to around 00210 were lottery cars, but that 
there would be no difference between 00210 and 00215 or indeed 00500 or 
01000, other than the historical footnote.

Cordially,

John H.
Raleigh, N.C.

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