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Over the past nearly 30 years, our small company has been fortunate to have had several of Alfa's beautiful 1900CSS "Super Sprint" coupes come through our doors. Each was special in its own way, but what I remember most about all of them was how incredibly fun such a vehicle was--and is--on public roads in real-word, modern, everyday driving conditions.
It is difficult to believe that these lovely machines are now more than 60 years old. Their two-liter, twin-cam, long-stroke engines produce massive torque instantaneously and, rare for the day, Alfa fitted these performance vehicles with truly revolutionary five-speed, fully synchronized transmissions (4-speed for earlier CS or "Sprint" coupes) as well as special gearing and final drive ratios. They were also fitted with the absolute best-designed
"Alfin" drum brakes of their day.
With a finely-tuned suspension and a combination of performance, handling and braking, they readily put to shame most of the 300SLs, Ferraris, Maseratis, Jaguars, Astons and Corvettes they competed against. Alfa realized most of their clients would be racing or rallying these short-chassis "Super Sprints" and all were delivered with oversized fuel tanks to give them the necessary legs to compete in the endurance races and rallies were they were favored.
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Bill Noon
Symbolic International
San Diego, California 92121 USA
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