I’m always honest with you, aren’t I? I try to be. That’s part of what I value about our relationship: the honesty. That’s why I’m going to tell you that I feel like I’m really sliding behind on all the content I want to produce for you. I have so much good material to wade through, but there’s so much I’m getting that Large Task Inertia thing I’ve mentioned before. For example, I want to do a big roundup of all the incredible taillights from Pebble Beach and Goodwood, but the sheer mass of it all makes me dizzy. But, I’m not here to complain, and you’re not here to not read about fascinating taillights, so I’m just going to bite off one interesting and strange little chunk and serve it to you, still damp with my saliva, for you to contemplate. It’s a taillight I saw on a beautiful old Alfa Romeo that was going to be auctioned by R&M/Southeby’s. It’s a taillight that looks like, of all things, the front of a Jeep.
Yes, the face of a Jeep! That thing that Jeep pays a team of lawyers lots and lots of money to make sure nobody tries to replicate in any fashion or they’ll go ape-plops on your ass. It’s also on a car that has incredibly little to do with Jeeps of any sort, except of course for the fact that due to fate’s capricious dice-rolls, Alfa Romeo and Jeep are now siblings under Stellantis parentage.
Let’s take a quick look at the car first, because it’s a remarkable machine. It’s an Alfa Romeo 8c 2300 cabriolet, bodied by the incredible Figoni, and the auction estimates were between $3 and $4 million. Dollars. So many dollars. It doesn’t appear to have sold, though, so perhaps it really was too many dollars? Still there’s only three or four of these left in the world, and they’re about as close to a 1930s supercar as you’re likely to get.
The engine in this thing is interesting, too. It’s only 2.3 liters, but it’s made up of two four-cylinder blocks connected end-to-end, and, get this, the crankshaft is also split, and where it’s connected it drives some gears that drive all the ancillaries: the camshafts, a supercharger, oil and water pumps, and generator. It’s pretty amazing.
Of course the bodywork is the real star here, with those long, elegant, flowing fenders and that sleek two-tone paintwork. It’s lovely, and in person, has real presence. You feel like you’re around something very special. I’m also told it has special windshield wipers of some sort, but I can’t quite figure out what’s special about them?
But look, I’m not here to talk about engines or body design or any trivialities like that; I’m here to talk about taillights, specifically these taillights:
These taillights are interesting for a number of reasons: first, I really don’t think they were original to the car. Other examples of Alfa Romeo 8C taillights tend to look more like these:
Those are more period-expected type of taillights for a 1930s car. This particular Alfa Romeo 8c was fully restored in 1987, and my guess would be that the lights we see on it were added then. They do seem a bit more like 1980s lights, after all, and, personally, I think they sort of clash with the rest of the design of the car. You do a full restoration and pick some off-the-shelf lights from your current era? Feels weird to me.
But, in a way, I’m glad that’s what happened, because if not, I never would have seen this in these lights:
I mean, look at it! It’s a Jeep face! Is there any way to look at that taillight and not see this?
I don’t think so. I don’t think this was intentional, because, why the hell would it be? I mean, how would that conversation even have gone between then-owner Robert Rubin, noted collector of vintage racing cars, and Chris Leydon, renowned Alfa Romeo 8C specialist?
SCENE: 1987, Leydon’s restoration workshop
Rubin: I got your eleven faxes and came here as soon as I could! What’s going on? Is everything okay?
Leydon: Yes, yes, everything is fine! I just have some wonderful news for you!
Rubin: What? Tell me! Did you get the seat smell restored to what it was in 1933? Did the fabricator finish the fenders? Did you source the special wipers?
Leydon: Better, better, better! I’ve found the perfect taillights!
Rubin: What? How? You said the last proper taillights for this car fell into a volcano in 1951 as part of a Black Mass!
Leydon: I realized I was thinking about it all wrong–I took a new approach. A bold approach. Look at these! (opens a velvet-lined box)
Rubin: Are…are those supposed to be… little Jeep fronts?
Leydon, through tears: Yes. Yes they are.
(Rubin and Leydon embrace and sob, openly and unashamedly long into the night)
I bet it was something like that.
I don’t know, really. All I know is that these taillights reminded me of Jeeps immediately and I couldn’t shake it. And I can’t imagine that nobody else noticed this? It can’t be? Can it?
Can it?
Kinda late to the party, and it does look a lot like a Jeep nose. But aside from the grille peak, it also looks an awful lot like the nose of the Alfa itself.
Ford designed the slotted grill, I like to remind Jeep people of that.
Looks a bit like a stutz bearcat
Clearly not original because I don’t think they had the capability of producing that in glass back then. I love that car how about a kit version? I don’t see the Jeep as much as a Jaguar when turned upside down.
The capability to form complex glass via cheap mass production methods goes back to around the 1920s at least.
However the willingness to spend the money does not extend that far back
These were the Ferraris of their time.
Slightly different body, but yes, they very much were.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-WZ2o9iX-I
There was perhaps a very few if any cars made in this era that were painted in this hideous gray color; or should I say clearcoated primer. This car, while it may appeal to the sensibilities of 2023 is goint to need a repaint to sell and everybody knows it.
Not enough bars. Not jeep. Sorry Jason.
We have finally achieved it. The founders have fused into one mega-car-weirdo: Davson Trachinsky.
Davson E. Trachinsky, to be exact.
Dason Torchsky
Thats just gorgeous. The sweep of the fender highlighted by the red swoop prompts all sorts of fizzies—swooning, even.
Anyone here know about these? Info online seems to be all about the history and the motor, but I’m curious about the ridged round thing with red dots just visible in front of the wheel in the shot about the tailight picture. Other pictures I found show one inboard of each front wheel. Something involving the suspension, I assume. As these were often raced, I wonder if it is some sort of adjustment?
I found a mention of semi-elliptical leaf springs & friction shocks-maybe the shocks?
The round things are indeed adjustable friction shocks, along these lines:
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/attachments/_1-jpg.2796164/
I’m surprised you haven’t located these tail lights in your archives of 70s JC Whitney catalogs.
Jason, you may be in need of medication…
What??
You’re kidding, right?
I come here for the crazy—wouldn’t be Autopian without it!
The center power take off is a pretty clever way to reduce the torsional distortion of the crank. I’m not sure why it wasn’t used more often in the I8 era and I don’t know the earliest implementation, but a number of subsequent high rpm engines of challenging length had them.
I didn’t know there were more center take-offs. Seem to recall a flat 12 laid out that way, but had no idea it was done more than once or twice.
-there’s a description of a crankshaft in John Jerome’s Truck* as ‘a long whippy mother’ that came to mind as soon as I read about this one.
*highly recommend the book. Full title is Truck: On Rebuilding a Worn-Out Pickup and Other Post-Technological Adventures. Old fashioned back-to-the-earth hippy who used to write technical pieces for a sports car magazine on finding & rebuilding a ‘50 Dodge. Fun musings on assembly vs craftsmanship mixed with the realities of actually dealing with gunk & corrosion in a New England barn heated by a wood stove
Yeah, Porsche did that with an H12. Cizetta Moroder V16T, too. I know I’ve seen it on other cars over the years, but mostly race cars. Peugeot WRC car, maybe, too? Something like that, but in that case the idea was to have a symmetrical AWD system with a transverse engine.
One could find a fair amount of symbolism in this if one were so inclined.
The taillight is a combination of Torch’s and DT’s proclivities. (They’re getting paid for them, otherwise they would be amateurclivities.)
The power behind the Alfa is a straight-8, a fantastic engine in its own right, and it’s assembled by joining two 4-cylinder engines: clearly they represent the powerplants from the Pao and Project Postal.
Those 4-bangers – combined with some additional and critical components – drive the majestic swooping vehicle called the Autopian.
…
Or that’s all twaddle and the taillights were ordered from a JC Whitney (formerly Warshawski) catalog.
They were probably running short of schedule and money to finish the restoration on time and in a moment of desperation someone sent an intern out to get some CHEAP tailights … and the rest is history.
Conspiracy: Stellantis bought alfa just to protect jeep IP. It’s so clear now.
Read the tail lights for they foretell the future.
In the 1930’s nobody would have believed it.
The future was Stellantis, I still can’t believe it happened.