- BODY: Aurora
- WHEELS & TIRES: Road Race Replicas
I have had a rather difficult history with these Alfa T33’s in my slot car collection. I’ve twice told the story of how I ruined the 2nd one I bought, a blue copy that, at the time I bought it, was the most expensive slot car body I had ever obtained and was in flawless, never-used mint condition. It was one of the stupidest mistakes I’ve made in this hobby, and one that drove me to pay a record price-for me, anyway!-for a pair of them later, winning a bidding war on a very good (but not mint) blue and green duo that hammered for $270. Not out of the woods, I later got some electrical cleaner overspray on the body of the green one, which literally “melted” the graphics off the body, destroying the racing numbers and the quarter panel adverts. It was this last incident that caused me to cover over the now illegible stock racing number, and having taken a set of extremely hard to find Road Race Replicas “TA” style wheels, which were painted yellow, off of another car, I decided that a green and yellow color scheme-which always looks great on a racing track-might be the salvation I needed to try to save my second ruined T33 body. I think it came out quite well, and I’m rather happy with it now, but it was a painful road to get here.
In truth, the original version of the Alfa T33 was not a successful racing car, suffering from myriad mechanical problems and winning only one race of significance until its resdesign as the Tipo 33/2. But boy, did it look cool! Nicknamed the “Periscopica” due to its large air intake looming like a cobra’s head over the cockpit, it was an example of the kind of Italian over-engineering that causes machine-heads like yours truly to erupt into shrieks of delight just looking at a cutaway rendering of the engine. At the time its development began in 1965, this was only Alfa Romeo’s 2nd attempt at a mid-engined chassis, and the engine developed for it by “captive” engineering firm Autodelta was a super short-stroke 2 litre DOHC V8 capable of revving to an ear-splitting 9600 RPM or more. It had double ignition with twin distributors and was fed by a Lucas fuel injection system, producing just shy of 280 horsepower…not bad for 122 cubes! This power was put through Alfa’s own 6-speed manual transmission, a cutting edge unit in its day.
The model you see here is as the car appeared around roughly 1967, which brings us to The Lore for this particular copy: it is rare to see any Alfa Romeo in a color other than Rosso Corsa, but while works cars were always red, privately owned racers could appear in any color. This version, named “Bandito,” is campaigned by veteran English born racer Sawyer Sorenson, “Shortshift” to his friends, who, as a seasoned driver, can be counted on to guide his car around the track with aplomb. The car’s green and yellow paint scheme may remind some enthusiasts of the colors of the Lister Jaguars of the 1950’s, which isn’t too surprising, since Sorenson drove one of those as well in his younger years! Now a California resident, his plies his trade regularly at Drag City, an Englishman in an Italian car bringing international flare to a road course in the USA that started off as a drag strip for hot rods!
That is a heartbreaking story about the damage to the Alfa. That must have been a really hard lesson. That is interesting and true about over engineering. It sort of reminds me of what I’ve heard about those early 60’s Lincolns that looked fantastic but were a mechanical pain.