WeeklySA_AdminMILAN TO MODDERFONTEIN: Nostalgia and modernity meet at the annual Concorso d’Eleganza to celebrate the best of expressive Italian design stretching back more than a century
By Ali Mphaki
Alfa Romeo’s story began in Milan, but it stays alive wherever owners care for the cars, drive them and share what they have learned.
The Alfa Romeo Club of South Africa has been doing exactly that for more than 50 years and as part of their annual events bring to members and the public at large the pleasure of seeing a field full of Alfas, in what in Italian is called the Consorso d’Élegance.
And so it was when scores of Alfisti, name coined for Alfa Romeo owners and enthusiasts who keep the cars on the road and the knowledge around them moving, and hordes of people converged in the presence of Italian timelessness on the shore of the Flamingo Dam at the Modderfontein Bird and Sanctuary park last Sunday.
Typical of such motoring shindigs, it was a head-on collision of nostalgia and modernity with club members driven by a need to own or recreate a piece of their past, or simply love of old machinery, their shinning vehicles preened like beauty queens in the concourse d’elegance.
Like a mosquito in a nudist camp not knowing where to start biting, visitors were spoiled for choice at the multitude of classics on display mixed with a selection of Alfa’s latest performance-focused models, which included the all-new Alfa Romeo Junior Veloce and the high-performance Stelvio Quadrifogli, demonstrating how the marque’s distinctive character continues to evolve.
With the sanctuary’s variety of exclusive and dazzling plumage offering some background music to the carefully curated gathering of exceptional Alfa Romeo vehicles, there was, however, a focus on 60 years of the timeless Duetto Spider, a model launched at the Geneva Motor Show in 1966 and the last complete design by Batista Peninifarina, founder of the Turin-based design house.
As the Duetto Spider history will show the shape wasn’t much admired at first, but the lines matured gracefully over the years through a couple of restyles culminating in the square-tailed cars of the 80s that ceased production in 1993.
Some of us who grew up in Dube, Soweto, feasted our eyes on the red Spider 2000 beauty owned by local businessman Ntate Mosaka in the late 80s, a vehicle that invariably became a dream car for many at the time.
In Classic Cars; A Celebration of the Motor car from 1945 to 1985, author Martin Buckley notes that the Alfa Spider models were always highly priced, but with smooth steering, sleek gear change and fine disc brakes offered driver involvement and satisfaction that few cars could equal.
With the classic Alfa twin-cam engine under its bonnet growing from 1600 through 1750 and even 1300cc variations to become a fully-fledged two-litre in 1971, experts, however, still rate the 1750 for its sweetness and refinement, while even the 1600 offers lusty acceleration, and the two-litre the most torque.
“It was a civilised car too, with a good ride and a watertight hood that could be raised with one hand.” But what will likely fascinate Alfistis and the likes is how the first-generation Spider’s name Duetto came about, chosen after a contest drew 140, 501 suggestions.
One Guidobaldi of Brescia won a new Duetto his, which was intended to symbolize the twin-cam engine and two-seater configuration.
Rejected names included Pizza, Sputnik, Panther and wait for it, Al Capone.
A beaming Alex Shahini, Brand Communications Manager of Alfa Romeo at Stellantis South Africa, was seeing the cars together which he said brought facets of the 116 years of history into a central scope.
Alfa Romeo began in Milan on 24 June 1910 as A.L.F.A. (Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili).
“Even when a newer Alfa is placed alongside its senior, their identities and origins become ever apparent. The Concorso lets the cars tell that story, but the owners are just as important because they know where these vehicles have been, the history they have lived through and meticulously preserve them, bolstering the fascinating and intertwined history between Alfa Romeo’s Italian roots and the fruitful branches of South Africa.”
The Club’s own story began in Johannesburg in 1973. It has remained active ever since this time around bringing Milan to Modderfontein.
