Alfa Romeo G1 Scat

Extra information

The found Treasure
 
Nowadays it is hard to believe, but back in 1921 as Alfa Romeo initially offered its race car designated as the Type G1 it attracted almost zero interest at the market. In its home country – Italy – the car did not find a single buyer.

 

And all that despite the fact that the 49-year-old Chief Designer Giuseppe Merosi just developed the existing model line further. The chassis based on the in-house development from 1914 and was fitted with a new 6.3 liter six-cylinder engine, which was directly positioned above the front axle. With a performance of 70 hp Alfa Romeo assured a top speed of almost 140 km/h for the G1. All these benchmark data were actually ideal conditions for a successful sale. But this was not the case. With start of production in 1921 – except for two prototypes that were already set on wheels in 1920 – the sale was such bad that the production was already ceased in the very same year. A total of 50 copies left the production facilities and found a buyer – not in Italy, but in Australia. This was probably the first and only time in history that the complete amount of an automobile production did not find a buyer in its home country and was thereafter exported to only one country. But later on the export to Down Under proved to be a lucky coincidence. Miraculously one race car with the chassis number 6018 survived in Queensland for many decades. Beginning in 1964 a extensive restauration of the forgotten race car was started, which ultimately took overall 10 years. In 2007 the car was sold to the Alfa Romeo importer of New Zealand, in 2012 it fell into the hands of a Californian collector and 6 years later it obtained a tidy price of 445,000 US Dollar at an auction.

 

Today the car with the chassis number 6018 is the only known surviving Alfa Romeo G1.