eBay

BACKGROUND:
Little introduction is needed for Alfa's wonderful series of GTA vehicles built from 1965 to 1975. These were a special derivative of the Tipo 105 Series Coupés that had been introduced in 1963. The main difference was a massive weight reduction program with body panels in alloy and a large number of alloy and magnesium components used throughout the vehicle to bring weight to an absolute minimum. The “A” in GTA stood for the Italian word “Alleggerita” or “lightweight.” Weight reduction was taken to the extreme. For comparison a regular production Giulia Sprint GT had a curb weight of 1,130kgs / 2,491lbs while the GTA came in at only 820kgs / 1,810lbs!
 
Initially there were two basic variations, both with highly tuned, classic Alfa twin-cam, twin-plug, four-clyinder, in-line engines and five speed gearboxes coupled to a live rear axle. The “Corsa" or racing version was destined strictly for track and pure competition use. A more refined and comfortable “Stradale” or road version was also available. 500 examples were completed giving the car FIA Homologation status as a true “GT” racer and these small and nimble machines immediately proved themselves more than capable against even the most powerful 5 and 7-liter engined racers of the day. 
 
In order to take advantage of the very popular under 1300cc racing class, in 1968 a GTA Junior version was also put into production. Like the earlier 1600cc version, the new GTA Juniors came in two forms, a Corsa for competition and Stradale for road use. As with the 1600, the new 1300 was an immediate success on the track dominating their class and very often due to their low weight, excellent handling and braking took more than a few overall wins from their much larger engined competition.
 
Official production of the GTA in all variations was slated to end in 1969 however demand from racing teams pushed the Alfa Factory into a difficult position. The GTA had evolved into a potent FIA GR/4 and GR/5 racer in the guise of a heavily modified GTAM which featured radically altered body-work and highly tuned 2.0 and even 2.5-liter engines with both injection, mechanical superchargers and later even turbo-charged versions. In order for the GTAMs to continue championship racing in FIA sanctioned events, the GTA road version had to be available as a “production” vehicle available for retail purchase. In order to accommodate client needs, the Alfa Factory quietly kept the 1300 GTA Juniors (Tipo 105.59) in production from 1970 until 1975 long after the vehicle had been planned to be phased out. Actual production of the steel-bodied production version ended in 1969 when the last of the "step-nose" examples were completed. Those in the “know” however were aware that Alfa had set up a small department of specialist that continued to “hand assemble” GTA Juniors on an "as-needed" bases. This loosely met the FIA’s requirement of a production road version available for retail purchase but the true purpose was simply to keep the racers legal so they could continue racing in championship events.
 
Almost every GTA Junior built after 1970 went to race teams who immediately gutted them and turned them into GTAM racers. This involved the stripping of front fenders, valences, front bonnet and doors which were usually then fitted with fiberglass, pure-racing derived substitute components. Radically altered front and rear fenders allowed equally larger wheels and tires to be fitted. A variety of Alfa derived twin-plug, twin-cam four cylinder engines of ever larger displacements were fitted. These now often featured fuel-injection and in several cases hydraulically driven, mechanical superchargers and as previously noted even turbochargers were adapted. As power and performance went up the need for thin and fragile alloy panels from the original GTA became obsolete and the GTA Juniors were largely assembled with hand-fitted and pop-rivetted steel panels that were more rigid and far better up to the task and demands of top-level competition. For several years it became possible to order a GTA Junior Stradale direct from Alfa Romeo long after the official production version had been replaced. A handful of these "Homologation Specials" did not pass into the hands of racers and remained road cars. A total of just 193 GTA Junior Stradales were completed making them the rarest version of all of the various GTAs completed. Having said that, today very few have survived the ravages and nature of competitive racing. Those that did have been in many cases modified far beyond their original delivery configuration. Less than ten of these rare GTA Junior Stradales in their original "as-delivered" configuration are known to survive to this day. Our subject vehicle is one of those fortunate survivors.
 
THE END OF THE GTA: 
At the end of the 1975 Season, the FIA could no longer look the other way. After ten years of front-line, competitive racing it was clear that Alfa’s small production of hand assembled GTA Juniors were nothing more than a trick to keep the racers “GT” legal. Homologation was ended and Alfa with no announcement completed the final GTA Junior Stradale’s in July of 1975. A few left over examples remained unsold until December of that year and with the last of them gone, one of Alfa’s finest chapters in racing came to an end. This also ended Alfa’s tradition and program of providing hand assembled “Piece-Unique” vehicles to special clients on an "as-demand" basis, something other manufacturers had ceased to do in most cases a decades earlier.
 
Production of the GTA Junior Stradales from 1970 to 1975 was hardly linear and far from uniform. There are more unknowns than knows. Production records by chassis number, color and competition date indicate that initially several Alfa specialist teams built from five to as many as ten examples a month in the first few years, but by 1974 production had shifted to just a single specialist team with only a couple of examples being finished each month. The sequence of chassis number and production dates seems to make little sense. Here are several known examples by sequential chassis number and production date:
 
AR*776122* Completed July 1974 Sold July 1976
AR*776126* Completed August 4th, 1975 Sold September 3rd, 1975
AR*776131* Completed July 18th, 1975 Sold December 2nd, 1975
AR*776139* Completed July 28th, 1975 Sold December 1st, 1975
AR*776142* Completed November 23rd, 1973 Sold November 29th, 1973

 
The small-scale, hand assembly, finishing and painting of these GTA Junior Stradale’s was more on the line of a pre-war manufacturing process. There was no production line. A single team of workers started to assemble a vehicle and finished it. Assembly times varied from as little as a few weeks to several months in some cases, again always as demand and specific orders for a vehicle came in. Assembly started with a lower steel floor pan to which individual steel and alloy front and rear bulkheads and outer body panels were “pop-rivetted” and bonded into place. Thousands of individual rivets were used to assemble the various panels and little to no attempt was made to hide the crude production method. (A tell-tale sign of an original example is randomly visible rivet heads between various roof, rain-gutter, trunk and fender to body seems. Rear and front bulkhead's will show little attempt to hide the riveted, bonded and fastened together panels. Inner panels received little to no finishing, while external panels often had an extra layer of body filler, bonding compound and paint applied.)
 
Only two colors were offered, Hawthorn White and Alfa Red. Even the painting of the completed shells was done by hand with faults and flaws in the paint the norm rather than the exception. Initially the inner steel and floor pan was made from a very thin metal, with the outer panels completed in alloy, but this changed quickly to regular thickness steel when it was found that race modifications and racing stressed the panels and floor pans and distorted them badly. Towards the end of production only the outer door skins and rear deck lid were still being completed in aluminum… although not entirely as in the case of AR*776139*, our subject GTA.
 
CHASSIS NO. AR*776139* 
AR*776139* is sequentially by chassis number the tenth to the the last of only 193 examples completed. It was by production sequence number the very last GTA built, No. 193 of 193 total units. It was completed on Monday July 28th, 1975 and sold new on Monday December 1st, 1975. Here are the original production component details which also remain with the vehicle today:
 
Chassis No. AR*776139*
Engine No. AR00559*05380*
Gearbox No. 22418
Rear Axle No. 10D8 / 3

 
The exterior color was and remains Alfa Red. No interior color option was available with all examples being completed in black vinyl with black headliners. With the race homologation withdrawn for the 1976 Season, the Alfa factory had a hard time getting rid of the final GTA Juniors completed including this particular example. It was not until early December that it was finally sold and road-registered for the first time. The original owner or details on the vehicle’s early life not well known. In December of 1991 the car was purchased from the original owner near Milan by a Japanese classic car broker. Total mileage at the time of purchase was just 13,900 kilometers. After purchase, the vehicle was sold and exported to a private museum collection in Nagoya, Japan. On arrival in February of 1992 the original Italian road-registration and plates were surrendered and new Japanese registration was issued two months later in April of 1992. At the time of import to Japan and road-registration, this vehicle had covered only 14,100 kilometers from new. It was little used while in Japan and on July 30th, 2014 the officially recorded mileage was now only 18,600 kilometers. The vehicle was offered for sale for the first time ever publicly in the Spring of this year at which time our company quickly arranged for inspections and a subsequent purchase. At the time of our initial inspection in February of this year, total mileage was only 19,328 kilometers. Our inspections revealed that the vehicle was remarkably well preserved and with the exception of a new stainless-steel exhaust system exactly as completed and delivered new in December of 1975. The original owners manual, sales brochure documents, ultra-rare took kit and original C.C.M unique jack were all still with the vehicle. The original matching number engine, gearbox and rear axle assemblies were also still with the vehicle and all were completely stock with no signs of modifications or updates. In May of this year the vehicle was exported and shipped to our showroom / shop facilities in San Diego, California where it was issued new title, license and registration in our company name.
 
CHASSIS NO. AR*776139* TODAY:
Our company had previously been involved with a similar GTA Junior Stradale and our friends at Alfaholics in the UK had provided a generous amount of information on these rare Alfas. I also contacted the Alfa Romeo Factory archivist who provided a wealth of early production details, facts and figures on this and some of the other known survivors. Being the last production sequence example completed, we anticipated that the vehicle would have the standard thickness steel floor pan, bulkheads and outer panels with the doors and rear deckled in aluminum. We were quite surprised however to learn that the entire body, rear bulkhead, doors, deck-lid and many other panels were in thin gauge alloy rather than steel. On top of that, the steel floor pan, front wings and inner panels were the earlier “thin” 1mm type found usually on the early GTA variants. Here is a list of the alloy panels found on this particular vehicle:
 
-Doors
-Roof
-Rear Fenders
-Rear Deck Lid
-Rear Valence
-Rear Bulkhead
-Front Upper Bulkhead / Scuttle
-Radiator Shroud and Support Structure

 
In addition to all of these alloy panels all of the structural bulkheads and other panels the thin 1mm steel type. Numerous other light-weight items are also present in the vehicle everywhere you look. The dash panels is made of pressed cardboard with vinyl wood appliqué. There is no radio bracket and it has an Alfa radio-delete plate fitted to the dash. Surprisingly, this Alfa still retains the original pencil-thin, purely decretive bumpers front and rear as well as thin alloy trim throughout. All of the glass appears to be original and bares the date codes of October and November 1968 as testament to this. The mirrors are both the early “Alfa” embossed in-house ones used specifically on these vehicles. The interior seats, trim, carpeting and dashboard cover are all completely original and without signs of damage or wear or UV exposure. The rear seats appear never to have been sat in. The gauges are the unique 8,000RPM / 200KPH type found only on these GTAs and incredibly, the steering wheel is still the ultra-rare and unique, four-hole, six-bolt “HELLEBORE” Type that today is simply impossible to find. (One on Ebay sold for $3,200 in March of 2014.) The original key and numbered tumbler remains with this vehicle 40 years after it was completed. Engine compartment details appear lifted directly from the original FIA Homologation photos. All components, fit, finish and detail are “as-new” in in their original completion and delivery configuration. The correct Weber 45mm carburetors, intake manifold and unique air-box, silencer and filter assembly are simply perfect. The engine has only break-in time and features the original and correct early version, twin-plug cylinder head with correct original type valve covers. The original, close ratio gearbox, unique final drive assembly, front and rear brakes and “5A” rear suspension set-up which is also unique to these GTAs is all still present and in as delivered new configuration. The gearbox as with the engine has break-in time only on it.
 
After arrival at our shop the carburetors and rare, twin-plug ignition system were completely overhauled. the rear axle was likewise completely disassembled and rebuilt as were the brakes. New tires were fitted and the vehicle completely safety checked with all services and maintenance checks brought current and up to date.
 
It cannot be emphasized enough how exceedingly rare and unique these late production GTA Alfas are. To find such an example so carefully and conservatively preserved is nearly impossible. Only 193 of these Alfas were ever built. They were as such the very rarest of the GTA variants produced. Today only a handful of original un-raced "Stradale" versions are known to still remain. This particular example has only 19,640 original kilometers from new and it is completely matching numbers, fully restored and totally rust as well as accident free.  More than 200 high resolution inspection photos and copies of the original factory assembly records as well as sample copies of additional records and documents related to this vehicle can be accessed by contacting me at bill AT billnoon DOT com or by phone at 619 840 7811
    
Please feel free to contact to arrange for inspections and test drives.  I can assist with full door-door delivery anywhere in the world. EEC import is pre-approved at only 5% VAT and no additional duty charges.

Many thanks for your time and patience and good luck in all your automotive searches,

Bill Noon
Symbolic International
11425 Sorrento Valley Road 
San Diego, California 92121 USA   
Phone 619 840 7811 
bill AT billnoon DOT com