Re: ki cars (was: New Alfas)

["John Hertzman" <johnhertzman@domain.elided>]

Modelle wrote "To satisfy the visceral aesthetics of the old alfas, somebody
should be putting together a kit car using all the old drivetrains that are
still viable, once their bodies have gone away. Imagine a tubulare spider,
1300 lbs, fiberglass body with a 150 horse two liter." Before I got my first
draft finished Ted Spradley and James Montebello seconded the motion, and BS
entered the fray with a very proper answer, "buy the Ereminas TZ kit."

Indeed, Don Ereminas did put together "a kit car using all the old drivetrains
that are still viable, once their bodies have gone away", building as close a
replica of the TZ frame as would accept a non-irs 115 rear axle, and a
flawless fiberglass TZ body cloned off an original TZ. It wasn't the Spider
Modelle wants, but the first prototype of the TZ actually WAS a Spider with a
removable hardtop, (good photos survive) and it wouldn't be hard to spiderize
an Ereminas TZ.

The only problem is, kit cars aren't cheap, and while I wouldn't say that Alfa
owners are "cheap", many are frugal and many of the rest are impecunious. The
Ereminas kit was fairly priced- my recollection is that, as a kit less running
gear, it cost about what we paid for our Milano Platinum, new (and, later, for
our 164, new) at something around eighteen thousand, to which you merely add
the cost of reconditioning the parts from the donor car, paint, upholstery,
wheels, tires, and incidentals - say, what it would cost to restore a fair
project car. Or, you build something from scratch yourself, which is what
people did before there were kits. The welding isn't hard, just a
time-consuming skill. Making a fiberglass body isn't hard, particularly if you
pull a plug off an existing car- say, a Miata. A light fiberglass replica
Miata shell with an Alfa grill, (or a fiberglass replica Duetto shell),
space-frame underpinnings and Alfa running gear could probably be done in a
year's spare time for a few thousand more than it would cost to restore an
average Spider.

One of the neatest cars that hangs around the Krause & England shop is a
Giulietta-based Ermini replica. Ermini was an Italian builder of small
"specials", or etceterini, usually Fiat-based, analogous to Siata. One Ermini
which came over here in the late fifties or early sixties had a lovely
Scagliatti body, which Bill Devin cloned in fiberglass and used as a base for
several different sizes of bodies by cutting, stretching, shrinking and gluing
back together to accommodate anything from 600 cc to five liters, front or
rear engined, and quite a few Devin bodies seem to have survived unused from
having been purchased by people who wanted a Devin-TY or Devin-Austin Healey
or Devin MG. The nice twist on the Giulietta-based Ermini replica is that a
Devin fiberglass body was recently replicated in aluminum, not too hard for
someone who had an English Wheeling Machine and took the time to develop some
skill in its use. Presto, a lovely Scagliatti-replica bodied, space-framed,
Giulietta-suspended, 2000 engined light sports car.

OR, one could do what people did in the fifties. Ken Miles wanted a track car
a lot lighter than an MG, so he built the Miles R-1, with a simple two-tube
frame, MG and Morris Minor mechanicals, and an extremely simple, but handsome,
cycle-fendered body. Then Roger Barlow wanted a track car a lot lighter than
his Farina-bodied Cisitalia-clone Simca, so he built the Barlow Simca, with a
similarly simple frame, tweaked Simca mechanicals, and a lovely body by one of
California's best Indianapolis-car panel beaters. To stay competitive Ken
Miles built his "shingle", more MG mechanicals in a space frame with a
minimalist barchetta body. Colin Chapman did much the same sort of thing.
There were many other, usually larger, usually cruder, usually less handsome
American road-race specials, but there is nothing stopping anybody from
building a non-kitcar, non-replicar, Alfa-based sports car for a lot less
money than Cobra clone kit car would cost. All it takes is time, serious
interest, and persistence.

One downside is that one loses whatever competition classification advantages
come with having a production-based car, but that was a 'given' with Modelle's
wish.

A further quite practical variation would be an Alfa-based hot-rod. One of the
most common and least expensive fiberglass replica rod bodies is the Model T
Ford roadster, which has approximately the same size and shape as a circa 1928
Zagato Spider body on an Alfa 1500 or 1750. See the current Alfa Owner, p.8,
for a fair example of what could be approximated, with Alfa mechanicals, for
about the same time and money that people spend on basic Ford- or Chevvy-based
street rods, if one appreciated the vintage end of "the visceral aesthetics of
the old Alfas" that Modelle wished for.

Or, it wouldn't be that hard for an individual to do a fiberglass
approximation of an RZ, the open version of the ES-30 SZ, on a Milano or GTV-6
platform. There isn't going to be any "kit", though, because when push comes
to shove there aren't that many enthusiasts who would actually lay out twenty
or thirty thousand dollars (cash, not a five-year loan) for a Stradale kit, a
TZ kit, or any other sub-Cobra kit in the USA. For those who can substitute
work, the fifties were a precedent; some people did build the cars they wanted
before there were "kits", and they did it in metal before fiberglass captured
the popular imagination. Both DIY, kitless, and metal, are still options.

John H.
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