Alfa Romeo 8C 2900B Speciale Touring Coupé, Le Mans 1938 #19, weathered

Le Mans before the war was raced almost entirely in open cars, and in 1938 Alfa Romeo arrived with a closed one: a streamlined Touring coupé on the 8C 2900B chassis, over the twin-supercharged 2.9-litre straight-eight. Raymond Sommer and Clemente Biondetti had built a six-lap lead by dawn on the Sunday when, at a quarter to one, a front tyre burst at speed on the Hunaudières straight and damaged the bodywork. The wheel was changed, but a dropped valve ended the run in the 22nd hour, after 219 laps, and a Delahaye won. The car survived, passed through private hands and a museum in England, and has belonged to the Alfa Romeo museum at Arese since 1987.

This piece shows the coupé as a survivor, not a show car. The dark red is flattened and freckled with rust-coloured spots, dust gathers along the sills and arches, the #19 roundels on bonnet and tail are stained and chipped, and the grille and lamps are dulled. The patina is an applied finish. Beneath it the detail is intact: leather bonnet straps, a bonnet that opens to the supercharged eight, doors opening onto brown leather seats and a full dashboard, the Superleggera script and MI-630 plate on the tail, and black wire wheels. The base model is CMC's M-111, a limited edition of 3,000, built at 1:18. This example has been weathered by hand to look race-worn, and was made in Germany.