“Coachbuilt” is a term I don’t take lightly.
Sure an Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione is a fine youngtimer and I’m well aware that it has its loyal fans already. Primarily among alfisti, a fact that can largely be explained by their loyality to whatever is thrown at them from that edge, but there are actually others who like it profoundly. I didn’t when it come out in 2007, but even I think better of the car now, thirteen years after its introduction: It has actually aged rather well.
But I stumbled upon a passage in a description of exactly such a car that was up for auction last weekend, and described the origin of the car for sale as follows:
“Offered from a noted collection of coachbuilt Italian sports cars”
To which above question in the headline arises: How did it get in there?
An 8C is a series-produced car, not a coachbuilt proper custom-made-to-measure special, so it does not actually fit into a collection with that theme. Conversely, a couple of real coachbuilds were actually made on the basis of exactly the 8C, but that just makes the description doubly absurd. And no, it’s not an acceptable explanation that just 500 were made (plus about the same number of Spiders, to make matters worse): I guess this was not least because Alfa couldn’t sell any more?
Paradoxically the car at the auction did not sell either, but it’s the actual car in my photos above and if you do not believe me (unlike a real coachbuild they all look alike so how important can it be anyway?) it can still be seen here at the website of the auction house: 2008 ALFA ROMEO 8C COMPETIZIONE. It was bid to the equivalent of 197,000 Euro against the low estimate of 235,000 Euro. Let’s not discuss the last penny here though but surely this amount of money could have bought a proper coachbuilt, right?
