Keith’s Blog: A Super Day

All Alfa Romeos qualify as niche, “cult” cars. They always had very limited sales in the U.S., but offered interesting mechanicals and visual attractiveness. Some of the quirkiest were on the road last Saturday as part of the “Dave Beach Memorial Old Super Tour.”

Beach was a long-time stalwart and enthusiastic member of the Alfa Romeo Owners of Oregon who passed away last year. He always drove his red Giulia Super on the tour.

In the ’60s and ’70s, Alfa used what was called a “Tipo 105” chassis. On that platform, it built the entire production lineup, a convertible (Spider), a two-door coupe (GTV) and the four-door sedan (berlina or Giulia Super).

I recall being a teenager when I first discovered this Alfa sedan. I was surprised to learn that the Super, its highest-performance variant, had the same twin-cam engine with dual Weber carburetors, a 5-speed gearbox and four-wheel disc brakes as the Spider and GTV.

In fact, Giulia Supers were not uncommon to see racing in the SCCA sedan classes. Part of the period advertising proclaimed this was “The Family Car That Wins Races.”

The former SCM Alfa Super is now owned by SCMer Richard Lincoln and was recently shown at SCMer Philip Richter’s Turtle Invitational V. We tastefully upgraded it with a 2-liter engine (the original was 1,600 cc), lowering springs, a thicker front sway bar and added rear sway bar, and a 4.1 LSD rear axle.

The most memorable family trip we took in the car was with friend and mentor Bill Woodard. My son Bradley was just six years old when we embarked on a six-day, 1,000-mile drive from Portland to Lake Wallowa in eastern Oregon. I imagined we could have been an Italian family in 1967, going on our annual holiday.

This past Saturday was clear, sunny and in the 70s, so the turnout was good, with nearly 20 cars. Old Supers took the lead, followed by an array of vintage Alfas including SCMer Bob Piacentini’s SZ s/n 001 that was raced by the factory in the Targa Floria. A variety of new Alfas brought up the rear.

Bradley drove our car most of the way, and once again our 1991 S4 Spider showed that it had the handling and horsepower to keep up with all the other Alfas on twisting two-lane roads. This makes us continually wonder about “how much horsepower you really need” when you are effectively limited to 75 mph on country roads.

This was the first tour route that club member and GTV-6 owner Nic Iaboni had written. He did a first-rate job, with clear and accurate instructions and convenient checkboxes to note when sections had been completed. We look forward to more from him.

We covered about 200 top-down miles before peeling off from the group, as Bradley had to return to college in Eugene, OR, for a concert that night.

It was truly a Super day.

Read my previous blog posts here.

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