Description
Imagine that scene in the approaching dusk of a balmy Italian evening. Reflections of the setting sun rippling towards you over that shapely hood with pent roof, the warm, slightly oil-scented air flowing from the pedal and gearbox housing into the driver's footwell..., strumming and thundering from the supercharged straight 8- cylinder Alfa Romeo engine… the personification of a true classic racer!
Few great classic sports cars can match the intense sensory overload of the supreme Alfa Romeo 8C-2300 in raw action. Add to this the historical importance and cachet of the Le Mans 24 Hour Race, of Sir Henry 'Tim' Birkin and of Francis, Earl Howe and the icing on the cake is the apparent ownership of the late George Daniels and it becomes abundantly clear that the Lungo Le Mans is a thoroughbred sports car of great size.
The history of this magnificent Alfa Romeo 8C-2300 has been extensively researched by respected marque authority Simon Moore, and is as described in his beautiful three-volume bible, 'The Legendary 2.3' (Parkside Publications, Seattle, 2000).
This particular car was first registered by the Alfa Romeo company on June 3, 1932, with the Milanese plate 'MI 40780'. Sixteen days later, the third of a total of three Alfa Romeos entered by the factory for the 1932 Le Mans 24 Hours, Sir Henry Birkin and Earl Howe, took the number 9. Of those three 8 Le Mans factory 1932Cs, this one was fitted with racing coachwork by Carrozzeria Touring of Milan, but had a different windscreen and sturdier front wing supports than its sister models. Of the 25 starters in that Depression-era 24 Hours race, Birkin and Howe led in '2211065', now offered here, for a period before being forced to retire. Reasons for abandoning the race were given at the time and repeated in 'Tim' Birkin's autobiography 'Full Throttle' (GT Foulis, London, 1932) – as a blown head gasket, but there was also a story that it was his fuel tank that had split.
But following the withdrawal of Bentley's endurance racing in 1931, he and Earl Howe had joined forces to drive Alfa Romeo 8Cs in competition. By sharing Howe's 8C-2300, the pair had achieved their long-held shared ambition of winning the Le Mans 24-hour race. In his own 8C-2300, Birkin went on to win the third Irish Grand Prix of the same season, at Phoenix Park, Dublin, but crashed out in the RAC Tourist Trophy at Ards, in Ulster, and failed to finish in the Brooklands 500- Mile race. Now '065' as the damaged Birkin/Howe 1932 Le Mans car was taken directly to England for repairs, with the work carried out at the old 'Blower' Bentley factory at Welwyn, funded for Birkin by the Hon. Dorothy Paget. The car was next raced in that year's RAC Tourist Trophy at Ards, Ulster, on 20 August, driven by Earl Howe as race number '2'. This Alfa Romeo went particularly well and Earl Howe was actually the fastest, completing his allocated distance of 30 laps, 659,7 km, 410 miles, in 5 hours 9 minutes and 56 seconds. He was actually the fastest finisher of the entire race, but on the RAC handicap system he came 4th overall. Just behind him, in fifth place overall, was 'Tim' Birkin in his sister 8C-2300, chassis '063'.
After what could be interpreted as this 'moral victory' in the 1932 Ards TT, this ex-Birkin/Howe car was subsequently returned to Alfa Romeo in Italy, and no doubt the British Custom bond was subsequently recovered. On September 27, 1932 it was then sold to Giuseppe Campari for 90.000 Lire. It appears that Campari has handed the car over to coachbuilder Farina in Turin to be adapted from the Carrozzeria Touring-made racing regulation style to become a road-going Drophead Coupé.
At this point Marshal Italo Balbo enters the story of '065. Born in Ferrara on June 6, 1896, this imposing figure had risen to national Italian prominence as a youthful leader of the Camicie Nere, or CCNN, “Black Shirt” fascist movement. Italo Balbo were buried outside Tripoli on July 4, 1940 and repatriated to Italy in 1970 and buried there with Orbetello.
When this remarkable figure purchased Alfa Romeo 8C '065' on 12th January 1933, the rebodied Alfa Romeo had apparently been sold to him as new (!), although the price was a concession of 70.000 Lire. Registered as 'ROMA 33975', he kept it for two years. It is unclear whether the car was kept in Italy for Balbo's return visits there or whether it accompanied him to Tripolitania, but we understand that it was used after the successful completion of the 24-plane transatlantic flight in August 1933, touring Italian towns and villages as a propaganda exercise. Finally, on 12th February 1935, it was sold to Rome broker Marcello Venturi, who passed it on the same day to Domenico Ferlengo of Milan for 24.000 Lire. On 16th February it was re-registered to him with the Milanese registration 'MI 9126'.
The car had arrived in the UK on 1 June 1935 and was registered on that day as 'BXV 506'. Simon Moore's extensive research shows that it is most likely the Alfa Romeo 8C-2300 purchased by Johnny Wakefield, the enthusiastic private owner driver who had gone to Italy to buy a racing Maserati 4CM Vetturetta. While there he was also offered an 'ex-Balbo Drophead Coupe' which he thought was cheap, partly due to the fact that the pound was very strong against the Lira. So he bought it and brought it back to England. Johnny Wakefield found that the car in its rather flowery rebodied form had too much weight on its back and too low a final drive ratio, which would have been entirely consistent with it being set up for low speed processional work as already described. He quickly sold the car to dealer Guy Griffiths with whom he shared a paddock shed at the Brooklands Motor Course.
At some point the car was repainted silver and black, but exactly where it spent the next few years and the Second World War remains unclear. A new logbook was issued for it in June 1947 in the name of the current owner, Dr Thomas Cricklow of Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire. In 1951 it was sold to Kenneth Speakman of Ramsgate, Kent, and he sold it again through the dealers Johnson and Brown to Dr. Philip Robertson of Birkenhead, Cheshire, who subsequently drove it from June 1954 to March 1956. The aging Alfa Romeo was then taken off the road. It passed to Jack Frazer of Cullybackey, County Antrim, in Ulster, and eventually – in October 1968 – it was bought by Michael Johnson, who rebuilt it with his father Dermot in 1972. Ownership passed to Ann Johnson – the wife by Michael Johnson – on January 22, 1969. The car was not relicensed for road use until August 1974… and the Johnsons kept it for years until it was auctioned off under the gavel of Malcolm Barber at Sotheby's in December 1985. The successful bidder was Pierre Chillet from near Lyon, France.
In early 1991, the car was advertised in Hemmings by a dealer in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA, but Simon Moore characterizes the offer as a hoax. At the end of 1995, this ex-Le Mans, ex-Birkin, ex-Howe, ex-Balbo, ex-Wakefield Alfa Romeo was acquired by the well-known Alfa Romeo enthusiast Keith Duly, after which it was offered for sale by the London dealer in 1996. Gregor Fisken.
Having sold his ex-Birkin team 'Blower' Bentley, George Daniels was, as he recalled: “… looking for something lighter as the Le Mans Bentley was a bit heavy in tight corners and I saw that Fisken had the “Birkins” Alfa Romeo 8C-2300 from 1932 offered. I wanted that Birkin car, we reached an agreement and since then I have found it a great car for racing, lightweight, very fast, 210 km/h and it meets all my needs for a sports racing car…”.
After taking over, Daniels commissioned renowned specialists Rod Jolley Coachbuilding Limited of Hampshire, to return from the Drophead Coupé shape to the Birkin Le Mans body style. At the same time, the rest of the car was completely dismantled and rebuilt, with the engine entrusted to Jim Stokes. This beautifully presented Alfa Romeo 8C-2300 Lungo Le Mans comes with an extensive historical file.
