Year of manufacture 1961 Recorded mileage 75,095km Asking price £699,995 Vendor Howard Wise Cars, Loughton, Essex; 020 8418 9191; howardwisecars.co.uk WHEN IT WAS NEW Price n/a Max power 100bhp Max torque 83lb ft 0-60mph 11 secs Top speed 120mph Mpg 27.5
Just look at it, and you’ll quickly see why I picked this car. Not that I’m a budding racing driver – or could ever come close to affording its eye-watering price-tag, just a fiver shy of £700,000 – but what a stunner.
It’s simple yet sophisticated, bumperless and beautiful – and, even better, not red. That’s thanks to driver Pierre Orsini from Corsica, who wanted to campaign the car in his national colours. It is a lovely and brilliantly understated shade of blue that suits the car’s dinky shape perfectly.
This Alfa Romeo Giulietta Sprint Zagato is being offered by Loughton-based Howard Wise Cars and is race-ready. That’s courtesy of its previous owners, none other than the Banks family of Alfaholics fame, which adds cachet to a car that was hardly lacking. It was part of the Banks’ collection for more than 17 years, and in their tenure this SZ underwent a seven-year restoration, during which one of the team’s priorities was retaining as much of the original aluminium body as possible. The rebuild is described by the vendor as being ‘concours quality’, and the Alfa has done just 100 miles since its completion.
The paperwork being sold with the car includes a letter from early keeper Orsini himself, written in January 2010 (and, usefully, supplied with a translation). He explains he bought the SZ in Italy in 1961 and enlisted renowned tuner Virgilio Conrero to prepare it for competition. Orsini goes on to say his first event in the car was the Coupe des Alpes of June 1961, where he suffered an off-the-road excursion, then on 9 July the same year he
