Sportiva: how many?

["John Hertzman" <johnhertzman@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

In 622 Zak asked "How many Sportivas were produced in all?"

Fusi's answer is probably right, certainly close: four, with three surviving.
The three surviving are 0004, a coupe which Fusi traded to an Australian who
had an even rarer Alfa Fusi wanted for the museum; 0003, another coupe which
the museum has, and a Spider, probably 0002 also at the museum. The first car,
presumably 0001, was apparently a mule; there are photos as a spider with and
without tailfins, with several different front fenders and venting systems,
and as a coupe. There is a six page article in the August 1988 "Classic and
Sports Car", a slightly shorter article around the same time in "Thoroughbred
and Classic Cars" with different interpretations, and a thirty-three page
article by Ben Hendiks in "Het Klaverblaadje" which is probably definitive,
but I don't read Dutch, unfortunately.

I have seen suggestions that there were just three cars, with the presumably
0001 mule heavily refurbished as the base for one of the later cars and
renumbered. That is entirely possible, but there is no reason to doubt Fusi's
numbers and their implication that the first rough mule was junked when a more
polished Spider and the first coupe were readied for public presentation at
the 1956 Turin show.

What do you do if you have one of the loveliest and rarest of all Alfas, the
only one of its type in private hands? The Australian owner raced it, and
rolled it. After it was repaired he decided it was too valuable for such use,
and it was sold at auction and returned to Europe. Don't know who owns it now,
but I doubt that it sees much high-risk use.

John H.
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