When is an Alfa Romeo not an Alfa Romeo? When it’s the unique and visionary 6C 2500 SS Riva ‘Serenissima’ Berlinetta
Words Massimo Delbò Photography Evan Klein
My grandfather Cesare once said to the younger me that the secret to achieving something was to have either a business plan or a dream. ‘The first are more successful, but the latter are more fun,’ he’d add. ‘And if you make your dream come true, you’ll have something extraordinary and unique, because no two dreams are identical.’ When I asked what if you had a dream and a business plan, he’d smile, as that was the question he’d been hoping for. ‘Then you are a visionary,’ he’d say. ‘There aren’t many of those.’
History has left us with many dreamers and planners. But what about visionaries? I’m sure it is not by chance that we find more of them among the technicians that worked for companies than among their founders. But there is no doubt that most visionary of all in the early years of the automobile were the customers, the most eclectic, gifted, educated and talented human beings.
And it is such a perfect recipe of passion, technical capacity and vision that gave us the unique 1950 Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 SS Riva ‘Serenissima’ Berlinetta. After all, you have to be a little special to wear such a name without sounding pretentious, and this car certainly is special, born thanks to the technical capability of ingegnere Guido Cattaneo, Count Giovanni Lurani and the handcrafting skills of the Riva brothers. Each of them is worthy of a dedicated feature in his own right, but a brief introduction must suffice here.
Guido Cattaneo was born in Abano, Padua, in 1905, the son of ingegnere Giustino Cattaneo, who’d been in charge of the technical side of Isotta Fraschini since 1902. Naturally gifted, the young Guido grew up in a stimulating environment, his father leading the group of people that brought to pre-WW2 Italy many successes in the aeronautical and marine fields. Guido himself became a successful racer in cars and, even more so, in boats, winning the world title in his own creation, Asso.
The boat was manufactured by Cantieri Baglietto, owned by Count ‘Didi’ Trossi, and raced in the 800kg category, powered by a supercharged 500bhp Isotta Fraschini 12-litre six-cylinder engine. This lightweight wooden, single-seater racer was capable of 150km/h, a water-speed otherwise unheard of in the 1930s. Lessons learned here informed the fast ships used during WW2 by the Italian navy, manufactured by CABI Cattaneo, founded in 1936 by Gi
