Sedile posteriore (was: 6C 2500)

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

Timothy Leigh Rodgers wrote of a film Alfa sighting: "what looks like an Alfa
Romeo 6C Pinin Farina bodied Cabriolet. The car was quite prominent in the
movie. They were driving around the hills of Umbria in it, and once opened the
trunk to reveal a rumble seat and put a couple of passengers back there! I
didn't know Alfa made a car with a rumble seat.

"After the movie I had a chance to briefly ask the director about the car as
he bowed and smiled to those leaving the theater. He just stated it was an old
Alfa and that they had put a 'dickey seat' in it. I'd never heard that term
before, but it did explain the mystery."

Beatle Bayly responded "Dickie seat is a term used here in Oz, or at least it
used to be.  Maybe also in GB ?"

The desk dictionary spells it 'dickey' or 'dicky', gives the etymology as
"Dicky, nickname for Richard", and says "(chiefly Brit) the driver's seat in a
carriage", or "a seat at the back of a carriage or automobile". Cassell's
Italian/English/Italian dictionary translates 'dicky' as "sedile posteriore di
una vettura" but also translates 'rumble' as "sedile posteriore di una
carrozza".

Bigger question is "I didn't know Alfa made a car with a rumble seat." Prior
to the Giulietta the Freccia d'Oro (a two-door sedan, 680 built) was the only
Alfa-bodied Alfa which was not a four-door sedan. Other than those, Alfa made
chassis, not cars. The forms, details, and seating arrangements were between
the client and the coachbuilder; customer wants a dicky, customer gets a
dicky. Alfa never made a production car with a folding top, never made a
two-seater. (Alfa did at times have an in-house body-shop occasionally doing
one-offs, but normally out-sourced bodies for company-owned cars.)

Rumble seats or dickys may not have been common, but were certainly not
unknown; the first of Alfa's 8C 2300 Le Mans cars (Le Mans rules requiring
four seats) were long-wheelbase two-door touring cars with tonneau covers over
the rear seats, but the last ones were on the 'corto' chassis with rule-book
'seats' behind the rear axle. Also, on page 12 in Fusi one finds a photo of a
"Vetture Alfa 24 HP partecipante ad una corsa del 1912" with a three-man crew,
the third man in a seat over the axle and behind the gas tank, in front of the
four spare wheels (which are why a three man crew was appropriate); this would
have to be called a dicky or rumble-seat, although the car didn't have
anything which could be considered a body.

Cheers

John H.
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