Quote:
Originally Posted by harit Hi Travancore,
I am aware of this Monza, now in the US, but I am talking of a different car. A 1750. If anyone can give the chassis no of the Indore car, we can compare. This car was brought to India by a Lieutenant, I am not familiar with army ranks to know whether that makes him an officer.
Many of these cars had landed up in Ethiopia, which was under Italy, and during WW II they lost to the British. That is how some of these cars became British owned, and one Lieutenant brought one to India.
More can be read in The Automobile, August issue.
Cheers Harit
PS I was hoping that kasli would post a picture of the Alfa. |
Hi – I am a very new “newbie”, indeed this is my first ever post, so please excuse any mistakes. I feel a bit of an intruder on this excellent site, as I do not live in India nor do I have connections any longer with India, but I was born in Calcutta and have some recollections that I thought might be of interest in some of the fascinating threads I have been following since discovering the site.
Re Alfa Romeos, I am son of the Jimmy Braid mentioned as having shipped the Alfa Romeo 8C-2300 Monza (Chassis # 2311206) to India. The car was already in India when my father (not an English officer, incidentally, but a proud Scotsman) bought the car for Rs6, 000 after very lengthy negotiations on 2 March 1947 in Ahmedabad from a Lt. Robin Marsden and had it transported by rail to Calcutta. In the very informative letter Lt. Marsden sent my father to confirm despatch of the car to Calcutta he said that since my father had last seen the car the bodywork had been fully rebuilt in early 1946 for Rs2, 000, but noted that much of the instrumentation was not working properly, and the clutch was sticking, possibly from lack of use.
Interestingly, apparently Lt. Marsden also claimed that the car was ex-Nuvolari (although I know my father was sceptical as even back in 1947 he said every Monza for sale claimed to be ex-Nuvolari) but he seemingly didn’t base this assertion on the two rev counters but on the revised bodywork which he said the owner in Asmara from whom he had purchased the car told him had been undertaken by an earlier owner specifically to enter Nuvolari in one race only.
Early photos sent when my father was first enquiring about the car in 1946
I think this is of Lt Marsden, possibly in Ahmedabad (it was colour edited in the 1980’sby a friend of my father’s from an original photo which seems now to have been misplaced)
My father, who was at that time involved in the jute industry and was based at Angus Jute Mill outside Calcutta, used the Alfa at weekends to drive around the countryside or to go into Calcutta, as this was before motor sport had commenced in Calcutta. The car carried the registration BYA 3573 while in Calcutta according to my father’s insurance certificate dated May 1947, but unfortunately I don’t have any photographs of it in Calcutta. I recall as a very young boy seeing the car at the race track in Alipore, Calcutta around 1956 when it was being driven by Howard Jackson.
I was interested to read the comments on the Indore Alfas. My father must have enquired about an Alfa Romeo that His Highness the Maharajah Holkar of Indore owned, as I have a letter dated 12 May 1943 from the ADC to H.H. the Maharaja Holkar informing him that the car had been purchased by “one Rai Bahadur Seth Hiralal of Indore”. Unfortunately, the letter doesn’t detail the car, but I still have the photographs of the two Alfas that my father said Indore (or his ADC) had sent to him – the one I recall him saying he had tried to buy was a 2900B but I think the one that the letter refers to as having been sold was the smaller one (a 1750?).
In the 28 November 1954 Calcutta Motor Sports Club programme an Alfa Romeo is pictured being raced at Alipore by a Pat Connolly. From the photo it looks like a 1750 and closely resembles the one above, but it looks (in B&W) to be a different colour.
I hope this may help you fill in some of the “Alfas in India” gaps.
Best Regards
Ron Braid
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