Half-n-half prototype Alfa Romeo Giulietta SZ Coda Tronca takes FIVA Preservation Award

Photo courtesy FIVA.

How far should a car’s preservation go? Should it touch up some of the worst aspects of the car and make it presentable again? Or should it leave the car in as-found condition? Collector Corrado Lopresto decided to take both approaches with his 1961 Alfa Romeo Giulietta SZ Coda Tronca prototype and for that the FedeŽration Internationale des VeŽhicules Anciens gave the car its Preservation Award over the weekend.

Reportedly the first unrestored car allowed on the green at Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este, the Alfa displayed a clear dividing line from its heart-shaped grille to its Kamm tail, separating the half of the car left just as Lopresto found the car in California from the half of the car subjected to a careful preservation effort over the last several months.

Lopresto, an acclaimed collector of Italian cars – specifically coachbuilt and prototype examples – told the Italian media on the unveiling of the half-and-half scheme the day before the concours that his decision to neither leave it entirely unrestored nor to entirely preserve it was a “provocation to those who have no respect for the historical originality… Anyone who knows me knows that I always try to keep any trace of originality and (replace) only what was lost.”

An evolution of the Giulietta Sprint Zagato – itself a low-production attempt at wringing more speed out of the Giulietta by adding a streamlined aluminum body – the SZ Coda Tronca grew out of designer Ercole Spada and coachbuilder Elio Zagato’s idea to test pre-war aerodynamicist Wunibald Kamm’s cutoff tail concept. To do so, the pair took a Sprint Zagato, chassis number 00170, and added several inches to the body behind the rear wheels, trying out different shapes on the Autostrada between Milan and Bergamo.

Their modifications led to a limited run of Zagato-built Giulietta SZ Coda Troncas, reportedly about 30 of the run of 200 total Giulietta SZs. Zagato then sold chassis number 00170 to his onetime co-driver, Milan-based businessman Albino Buticchi. Somebody, possibly Buticchi, then exported 00170 to the United States, where Alfisti believed it was lost until Lopresto discovered it sometime early last year, largely intact and unrestored.

“We intervened only in the missing parts” Lopresto told Ruoteclassiche. “We found the original paint, we also kept the original Plexiglas, the thin 60s, very different from the current one, bigger and rougher. We also saved the interior, mending snags and quilting again from under the cushions. In short, we treated as if it were the Mona Lisa.”

Best of Show at Concorso Villa d’Este went to the 1954 Maserati A6 GCS owned by the Monaco-based Destriero Collection.

For more information on FIVA’s Preservation Award, visit FIVA.org.

from Hemmings Daily – News for the collector car enthusiast http://ift.tt/1Wm2KH1