Alfa 1900

More than a year ago Ray Reimer and I were driving his Alfa Milano through Amish country in northern Indiana, near his home. Ray wanted to show me his friend Mary’s collection of Ferrari’s in South Bend. We parked outside a small stereo shop in downtown South Bend. There were bars covering the small windows and trash piling up along the sidewalk. Apparently this little shop closed its doors to the public long ago. We knocked on the door and I was introduced to Mary. She was a gruff, spirited little woman who wore an eye patch and swore like a sailor. She and her husband Joe owned and operated the shop until Joe passed away about 10 years ago. The shop was full of miniature Dinky toys, model airplanes, and little metal signs. As we walked toward the back of the shop I noticed that there were cars underneath the memorabilia. I spotted an MG with boxes of vintage toys stacked on its hood, an old Alfa Spider covered in tiny memorabilia, a Mercedes SL peering out from under piles of books. We made our way into a large, clean room in the back of the building. Underneath covers were three Ferrari's, a convertible E type Jaguar, and a really old MG. The cars were all low mileage and had been meticulously cared for.

We pulled the covers off, sat in the cars and chatted about where this collection had come from. It turned out that Mary and her husband had once owned BAT car number 5. They purchased the car in the early 70’s, restored it and showed it. I saw an old picture of Mary standing next to their BAT car at Pebble Beach. When they sold the BAT car they used the money they made, which was considerable, to purchase the collection that we were now admiring.

While she was talking about their BAT car Mary pointed to a collection of boxes under an old bed sheet in the corner of the room. It was a post war Alfa 1900 engine that they had wanted to put in their BAT car. The BAT cars were based on the 1900 platform but this engine was slightly larger, they thought that with this engine the BAT car would be a bit faster and potentially more valuable. The engine came from a hand built Alfa Romeo 1900 Spider owned by a friend of theirs. He sold the Alfa engine to Mary and replaced it with a Corvette engine. The Spider was destroyed when the owner attempted to overtake a train. Mary asked me, “You know what happens when you race a train? Train always wins.”

The BAT car was later sold with its original engine, and the 1900 engine was boxed up and forgotten about.

I immediately envisioned this engine restored, put back together and displayed in our shop. Mary promised to sell it to me the next time I was able to visit her. Almost a year later I was back in Mary’s strange little junk shop packing the engine into my truck. I spent many weekends polishing, cleaning, painting and reassembling until the engine looked like new. It now sits on a custom stand in our waiting room, a piece of mechanical history with a very interesting story to tell.