When the photographer started the day with a ‘What if…’, I knew we were in trouble. He wanted to shoot this beautiful pair of Alfa Romeo 6Cs together by the shore of Italy’s Lake Como, immediately after the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este. What he neglected to consider was the effect his decision would have on the crowds. If you know Italians, you’ll know they love cars. Bring a unique, classic Alfa Romeo to a public place and you’ll be fielding questions all day as people stop to take a look. Bring two of them and, well… before you can start work, you have to wait your turn. In front of you, hundreds of tourists surround the vehicles, busy with their cameraphones.

The only person who doesn’t look surprised is the cars’ owner, architect Corrado Lopresto. With an embarrassed smile he says: ‘It’s always the same, everywhere I go with the Alfas. People look at them and fall in love.’ And it’s hard to blame them. The 6C is considered by many to have been one of the world’s finest automobiles of the 1940s and ’50s, based on a project led by Vittorio Jano and Wifredo Ricart, with state-of-the-art mechanical specification and, most of the time, flamboyant bodywork. Furthermore, each of these examples is a very special one-off, created by two of the greatest Italian coachbuilders. The cars were seen together for the first time at the Pebble Beach Concours in California last August, in the Centennial Alfa Romeo Class – and now for the first time here in Italy at Cernobbio, by the lapping waters of Lake Como.

The oldest is a 1942 6C 2500SS designed by Revelli di Beaumont for Bertone; the other a 1949 6C 2500 berlinetta styled by Pinin Farina, the first Alfa ever to wear twin headlights. Between them they have been awarded an incredible tally of prizes from concours around the world – and each has an eventful life story to tell.

First, the Bertone car, which started life as a racer. From 1939 to 1942, Type 256 Sport chassis were usually sent to Scuderia Ferrari for racing purposes, shortened from 3000mm to 2700mm in the wheelbase, then fitted with a bigger fuel tank. In the meantime, the engine was supplied with three carburettors and some pieces made in Elektron (a special alloy of magnesium, zinc and manganese) to save weight. The body, usually by Touring, was a biposto (two-seater) with low, sleek lines.

From 1942 (and chassis 915.501) the structure was reinforced with a transverse beam and the cars renamed SS (Super Sport). The Bertone model wears number 915.516, is listed as a third-series car (which means it’s a Super Sport) and was produced on 4 December 1942 – yet it’s missing that transverse beam, which suggests it was bodied on an older, refurbished chassis. The platform and engine had been dismissed from their racing careers by then and, with raw materials in short supply thanks to the war, Bertone bought the mechanical package from Alfa Romeo and created a dream car to the renderings of one of the most talented designers of the period: Mario Revelli di Beaumont. He styled some of the most beautiful cars ever – and he was an inventor, too. Mario’s nephew Oscar Revelli has an archive in which can be found details of important innovations such as central locking, flush-fitting doorhandles and sprung-spoke steering wheels.

Although the car has been restored, still evident are the cuts and the welds made by Bertone, as well as the supports for the previous body. The only known pictures taken of the model in the past were of it in front of the offices of the Ruggeri brothers’ Scuderia Milano, which had this and one other racing 6C 2500.

A coal trader in Brig, Switzerland, bought the Alfa in 1946, and kept it for 20 years before selling it to Bob Moran, who owned it until 2000. Lopresto remembers seeing it for the first time at the 2003 Techno-Classica Essen show in Germany, where it had been put up for sale by a trader. He didn’t know the car, but he remembered seeing a picture of it in a book by Tito Anselmi, liked it and tried to buy it – but another Italian out-bid him.

Lopresto tells me: ‘I was sad, but I had almost forgotten the 6C when, by pure chance, I met the new owner at the 2004 New York Concours. I asked him to sell it to me. He accepted, and I paid several thousand euros more than the first request of the trader in Essen…’

Lopresto elaborates about the car’s originality: ‘It was almost complete; only the front grille had been modified. One of the first things I noticed was the missing fan blade in front of the engine. Only later, surprised at the age showed by the cork sealing the hole left by its removal, we discovered that one of Scuderia Ferrari’s trademarks was to remove the blade.’

Although the Alfa was complete, it had to be restored. ‘When we discovered all the welding and the modifications on the chassis, we had them photographed and certified by two official surveyors,’ Lopresto continues. ‘In the meantime, we double-checked everything, only to discover that every single mechanical piece was stamped with numbers: one giving the year of manufacture (most of them are ‘/40’) and another that was revealed to be the mechanic number. So, if you have the logbook – and we don’t, maybe Ferrari has – you can name every guy who worked on the car and know exactly what he did. We were able to save almost every original panel; the hardest part was the front grille, which had to be redone, but luckily we had the pictures to look at. We did many drawings beforehand, but the final result is exactly like the original one. It took us about four years to finish the Alfa to concours condition.’

The history of the other 6C, the 2500SS bodied by Pinin Farina, is much more straightforward, as it was produced for a very wealthy Sicilian baron between 1949 and 1950. Most of the short-wheelbase Super Sport chassis were given to body-builders to create something special – as with this one, number 769.

After the war, the Alfa Romeo factory was recovering from damage and the company stored all the moulds and the tools needed to produce cars. Without money to develop new models, the managers resurrected the 6C and put the chassis and engines back into production. Chassis 769 was sent to Pinin Farina in Turin on 9 May 1949. There, a two-seater berlinetta coupé body was fashioned over the course of a year and shipped to Musumeci, the Alfa Romeo dealer in

Rome, which delivered the car on 20 September 1950. It was a work of art, with a very refined and modern design; the only other example made with similar styling was a cabriolet with a squarer front, still with four headlights, based on chassis 2500SS 915.766, bought by the Alά Khan and delivered to him on 4 September 1950.

The coupé’s first owner was Baron Giovanni Sangiorgio Gualtieri from Catania, Sicily. The family’s chauffeur recently recalled: ‘Baron Gualtieri was an incredibly wealthy man. I don’t know the exact total paid, but with the same amount of money he could have bought a whole building in Catania. The sales guy was not happy
in taking so much money in this “risky” way [by cheque] from a guy he didn’t know, and asked him to wait until he’d called the bank to verify if the cheque was covered. The reply from the astonished bank worker was very direct: “Don’t worry about the money; the guy in front of you could buy the car, the whole dealership and probably the area of Rome where you are located!”’

Baron Gualtieri kept the car for little more than a year, after which he passed away, leaving all his money to a foundation that bears his name – much to the consternation of his family. Sicilian newspapers of the period called the subsequent objections ‘the one billion lire fight’. In 1951, the Alfa was sold in Sicily to a second owner and arrived in England in 1961, in the ownership of Sir Anthony Andren.

In 1975, it was bought by a dealer who advertised the car in Motor Sport, September 1976, and sold it to Frank B Day of Boulder, Colorado, in the USA. In 1989, Day sold it to Mark Wallack, who began a restoration that was continued by its subsequent owner (from 2000) before Lopresto purchased the model in 2004.
‘A dear friend heard about the car being restored and told me that it was for sale in the USA,’ Corrado says. ‘He knew that I was always looking for special Italian one-offs and put me in contact with the seller. The Alfa was unused, and had practically been up for sale right from 1991 even when under restoration. I bought it unseen. They told me the restoration was almost done, and that they took very good care of everything. I saw some pictures, the car was looking good, and I bought it, with the idea of having it ready for Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este in 2005. When I got the model, I quickly understood that, before there was any hope of winning a concours, I would have to have it restored to my standards.’

The renovation took a further three years. ‘Luckily the team of experts I was working with was very good, very professional and knew exactly what I wanted and how I wanted the job to be done,’ explains Lopresto. And that work has resulted in an incredible succession of concours trophies since 2008, proving that everything had been done correctly.

Even though the two models are almost ten years apart in age, they employ very similar mechanicals. Both use the 2.5-litre straight-six with three carburettors; even their chassis are very similar, with the same 2700mm wheelbase. On the road they act as real supercars, becoming more enjoyable and capable as the speed increases. In each case, the clutch action is easy; you just need to remember to keep the revs a little above normal to avoid stalling. The Bertone car is smaller, easier to drive on the narrow roads around Lake Como, and you can feel the stiff ride of a racing car, only lightly tempered by the original 1950s Stella Bianca tyres – a loan from a friend for the concours the day before. With its cranked lever, the gearchange is not very fast, and you have to double-declutch to avoid embarrassing noises.

The Pinin Farina car is more friendly, less rigid and more relaxing to drive around the bends. The long bonnet stretches out ahead of the driver to give a view that’s impossible to forget. Gearchanges here require less effort; Lopresto says that’s only because the Pinin Farina model is more run-in, although the impression is that the more recent car is simply better. In both machines, once you’re under way, the steering is light and the brakes are perfect.

But what impresses most in either case is the soundtrack that reverberates around the cockpit. These really are racing engines, quick to pile on revs and with a glorious ‘voice’ that encourages you to keep your foot down. Considering the age of the two cars, their balance and handling are also incredible. The only sad moment comes when you have to stop and hand back the keys to the owner. Italians areso possessive…