Alfa-Romeo-Sprint-Speciale

This guy is living proof of the phrase “Becasue Racecar”. He hand builds cars from the ground up, for the love of racing, and not just for any old racing, but epic classic car racing like La Carrera Panamericana.

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In 1950, Mexico completed its stretch of the Pan-American Highway. To celebrate, the government organized La Carrera Panamericana, a race running south to north along the new stretch of road–and a race which quickly established itself as the most dangerous race of any kind in the world. For five years, drivers like Juan Manuel Fangio, Bobby Unser, and Felice Bonetto competed in the race until it was shut down due to safety concerns following the disastrous crash at Le Mans in 1955.

Revived in 1988, today’s Carrera Panamericana is still dangerous, fast, grueling, and addictive, as driver Conrad Stevenson can attest. Stevenson got his first taste of the race in a friend’s Studebaker in 2001. After a couple more years of participating in friends’ cars, Stevenson decided it was time to build a car of his own, in this case a 1965 Alfa Romeo Giulia Sprint Speciale.

The Giulia SS, which Stevenson describes as a “patchwork quilt” of his own metalwork, was never intended to be a concours queen. It is, as he points out, a purpose-built race car, built to go fast and hard, over speed bumps at eighty miles per hours and across 2,200 miles of Mexican countryside. Still, it is a beauty to behold.

“I’ve taken liberties with this style,” says Stevenson, who modeled his nose for his car after the earlier, lower SS noses that were known to provide better downforce. “I’m not presenting this car to Pebble Beach, it’s not an authentic ’65 car. But it is true, I believe, to what the designer, Bertone, intended.”

Whatever he did, it worked. Not only did he finish the race (a feat in itself), his Alfa took 21st place overall and first in the Historica A Plus class in 2013. Perhaps more importantly, the car enabled Stevenson to sate his Carrera addiction for one more year.

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John Galvin (JSG)
It started at a young age with bedroom posters, the Countach of course. This slowly grew into a super car die-cast model collection, fifty five 1:18 models at the last count. At which point it had almost taken full control, the incurable Mad Car Disease ran deep though my veins all the way to the bone. And things for my loved ones just got worse as the cars where now being bought at 1:1 scale, after a BMW, HSV, and couple of Audi's, the disease reached my brain, pushing me over the edge and down the rabbits hole into the world of the bedroom poster.

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