[Epic Restoration]
Restoring a mass produced car like an Alfasud can be a bigger challenge than specialist cars served well by the aftermarket, so a rusty and rare Giardinetta estate version really put the pressure on
You tend to be told, “I used to have one but I’ve never seen an estate before,” says HC Classics’ Richard Carp as he regards this newly restored Alfa Romeo Alfasud Giardinetta. ‘Alfa built 188,000 of the ’Sud-based Sprint coupés, but just under 6000 Giardinettas. And this one is even rarer than that. While most were built in Naples in Italy, this one was actually made in Sandton, South Africa. ‘We have a client who likes unusual, but understated cars,’ he continues. ‘Believe it or not, this will ultimately sit in a collection alongside a beautifully-restored Austin Allegro estate! But he found this car by complete chance on a UK auction website. It was a very dingy car in appalling condition. It was beige with a black interior, looked superficially straight and was just about drivable, but everything had suffered corrosion, had rotten through in places, and we ended up having to replace pretty-much everything.’
Assessing the project
‘The plan was to strip it, put primer on, and then what needs to be restored tends to become more obvious from there,’ says Carp. ‘And if you look for Giardinetta parts, you’ll be surprised – you can still get them, although they often turn up in unexpected places, more on that later.
‘We decided early on in the project that we wanted to change the colour though. This shade of green was an original scheme offered when the car was new, and there weren’t many colours to choose from for the Giardinetta, so we went for the most striking. The others were simple reds, whites et cetera. Then, once we found a brochure image of one in this colour, we also decided to replicate its interior rather than keep the black vinyl it had. We ended up having to get parts from the United States to complete that – the fabric must also have been used on American cars.
‘The wheels were wrong, from a later car, so we realised we’d have to source earlier ones. The dashboard was going to be particularly troublesome – it needed refurbishment, was brittle and cracked, and you can’t get replacements at all.’
Ilja Szklinski, HC general manager, carried out the stripdown. ‘The condition wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been. The metal was rusty, rotten through in several places, but not completely gone in the way some Alfasuds are. However, it was running poorly, with low compression on every cylinder, and the suspension was worn out. Everything needed replacing. I started sourcing parts, initially from Italy, but increasing numbers of items were turning up further afield – Japan and Argentina in p
