more pics
Original wheels and tyres back together again and a collection of some of the docs that came with the car
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First car I ever drove 1750 Auto Berlina aged 13. The local Dr who was helping develop my golf career by taking me to many country events and winning money playing Fourball events with me as partner. He had great penchant for straight scotch in short glasses and so it was I drove home a lot, 20, 30 even 50 miles as he was always hammered!! Luckily I was pretty tall early in life.Leave a comment:
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First car I wrote off: My mums Alfasud 1.2 when 17yrs 9 mths
First car I bought with my own money: Alfa 1750 Berlina when 19yrs 3mths
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More pics of work in progress and some of the finds
It has taken 16 hrs and 10 litres of prepsol to get rid of the black rubbish
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The Duckett Alfa Romeo 105
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I think it is time to tell some of the story of the car I own, the super low mileage (9002 miles) highly original, 1974 2000 GTV in Le Mans blue.
This is the car that was advertised for a ransom at CTS 2.5 years ago, I bought it while sitting in the Serengetti in Africa afraid it would be gone by the time I returned home.
My love affair with 105 series Alfas began in 1977 when i was offered a low mileage, 1 owner Series 2, Pine Green 1750 GTV and as a 21 year old how could I resist. I had a great 6 years with the car as a daily driver with the car and subsequently owned several 105 series cars and an Alfa Sud TI.
My attention turned to other HSV's in the 1980's and to porsches in the early 90's.
The car I now own was owned from new by Lyndon Albert Duckett a wealthy bachelor, part of the Duckett/White family, Melbournes first hardware merchants. Lyndon was a friend and rival of Lex Davidson and very prominent in the pre war and post war race scene. His TYP 35 Bugatti fitted with the Anzani engine was well known and very competitive.
Lyndon passed away in 2003 and several cars were found in an inner city warehouse, the Alfa was one of those it had just 500 miles on the clock and had never been driven on the road post the day it was delivered but always fully registered with LAD 777 plates. A mechanic periodically had the car on jacks and running the motor.
An Alfa enthusiast, Graeme Quinn, then purchased the car from the estate and drove it for a while before selling to Andrew Murray in WA who subsequently sold it to John Terpu in WA who subsequently sold it to John Borghetti in Sydney and I purchased from CTS who were consigning the car for John.
The car essentially remained as new with a few minor exceptions such as a bit of paint on front RHS guard to fix a large rock thrown at the car by another passing car, a bit of paint to correct bouncing around on the boat for 6 weeks on the way from Italy, different shocks and springs in 2014 (I guess to lower the car), different wheels and for some strange reason a heap of black rubbish sprayed under the 2 front guards. Also a second exterior mirror fitted.
Interior is 100% original including the carpet which except for 2 cig burns is perfect. No radio ever fitted, dash is also fabulous, seats still brand new.
My brief with this car was to fix the external paint and make it perfect again (or for the first time actually) but keep everything else 100% original even if not in true concourse condition. This car deserves to be maintained with all it's original nuts and bolts no matter what the condition. Some of the suspension has lost it's black paint but that is how it will be staying.
To this end I have so far.......
Located original date correct steel wheels and restored to correct paint finish (not the silver normally used but more a motly, grey finish as evident on the original spare wheel still with the car). I still hold hope of finding the actual wheels one day. NOS caps found on E Bay.
Located a NOS correct handbook (the only doc missing from the car, even have original delivery documents).
Located 2 NOS correct rear quarter badges (with curves) as the originals had been mucked with and no longer had green in the serpent.
Tracked down descendants of Graeme Quinn (thanks facebook) turns out to be Rod Quinn, who some of you will know. The original plates were held on retention at Vic Roads in Graeme's name so I needed the executor to release them to me. I met Rod and he happily passed ownership of the plates to me and hence back to the car.
2 weeks ago, after a few phone calls following on from reading through some of the invoices that came with the car I was able to locate the cars original springs and shocks which were removed in 2014. They are still in the then owners garage and upon returning from Europe in a few weeks time he will pack and send to me to further help in my quest to return this car to factory specifications. Super excited at that find as was currently purchasing old springs and chasing original shocks to do the job.
The car has been dry ice blasted underneath/engine bay etc at Kane's and Monza Motors have removed the engine, gearbox etc to allow for a thorough and extensive under body clean and to reseal several minor oil leaks from seals that have failed...gee I wonder why. I have spent hours after that fine cleaning all areas and the body work looks superb under there now.
The car has been entrusted to Paul Rankin for the paint restoration and I have been doing a lot of the dirty work with prepsol removing all the previously mentioned black rubbish
from under the front guards. Paul painted my 73 Targa restoration back in 2003 and any of you who remember that car it was a perfect paint job.
Hopefully the car will be painted prior to Xmas and then carefully re assembled in time for the National Alfa event in Mornington in April 2019, it will no doubt be a race against time but one I hopefully win.
Last week I was further boosted by the fact I posted on the Alfa forum and a gentleman by the name of Ian Anderson, Norman Hamiltons personal mechanic, posted back saying he had the wheels, tyres, centre caps and lug nuts from the car having purchased them from Graeme Quinn in 2004 when the Alfa had done less than 2000 miles from new. A deal has been done and as of tomorrow I will have the car back to 100% mechanically as it was delivered from the factory with it's own original parts. Amazing!
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5.jpg2017-04-17 12.26.11.jpgLast edited by Terminator; 24-12-18, 08:18 PM.
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