If I had to chose one or the other I would skip the Alfa museum in favor of
the Museo dell'Automobile Carlo Biscaretti da Ruffia, Corso Unita d'Italia 40,
Turin, which is almost certainly the finest medium-sized automobile collection
in the world. The collection is international but naturally strongest in
Italian cars. It has just six or eight Alfas among its several hundred cars,
but it does an unmatchable job of putting Alfas into context with the entire
Italian industry- the Fiat which won the French GP in 1907, the Itala which
also in 1907 won the Peking-to-Paris race by two months over the second place
car, the Fiats Jano worked on before he came to Alfa, the great Lancias he
worked on after Alfa foolishly fired him, the OM and Maserati competitors of
Alfa's glory days, the Ferraris which came later, the mundane economy cars and
opulent luxury cars of the twenties and thirties, great competition cars from
recent decades, some great cars that didn't quite work- like the tiny,
beautiful, 1100 cc blown V12 fwd Itala GP car from 1927 - everything. And the
few Alfas it has are very fine, the real thing. One wing of the top floor,
devoted to chassis and engines, has two superb Jano chassis which you cannot
see at Arese, a bare Lancia Lambda, fine engines which would be impossible to
see anyplace else.
As always, but especially in Italy, things change; what is open this year is
not necessarily what was open last year or will be open next year, so it can
pay to check first.
Enjoy,
John H.