Alfa Romeo 1900C Sprint Coupé

The Alfa Romeo 1900C Touring was presented at the 1951 Turin Motor Show, and was an instant hit. It featured a stylistic innovation as peculiar as hard to achieve: doors opened all the way to the bottom of the sill. The following year, this solution was abandoned, replaced by a higher opening, and a wider rear window was added. Touring’s Sprint, whose line was reminiscent of that of the coeval Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 SS Villa d’Este, was built by the Superleggera method and weighed only 1,000 kg, 100 less than the standard sedan, and touched 180 km/h. The elegance of the line and the agility given by the short wheelbase put it up against the Lancia Aurelia B20 GT both on the road and on the track. Instead, Pininfarina’s cabriolet, which weighs as much as the standard sedan because of the soft top mechanism, touches 170 km/h. The interior of the Alfa Romeo 1900C Touring, hand-finished as is logical on a 2,697,000 lire car, is different from that of the sedan and includes two seats on separate cloth and vinyl upholstered seats, a rear bench where extra luggage can be stored, carpeting on the floor, and a dashboard with circular instruments, larger speedometer and tachometer located behind the three-spoke wood and aluminum steering wheel, and smaller gasoline level and oil pressure gauges further down. Of course, these cars, although regularly listed, are for all intents and purposes custom-built, and any special requests of buyers could be met with appropriate surcharges.<