Curbside Classic: 1960 Alfa Romeo 2000 Spider – Take A Touring For The Worst

Everybody knows Alfa Romeo, but the number of folks for whom the name “Touring” rings a bell is much smaller. And that’s unfair. The famous Superleggera specialist was once one of the greats, equal to Ghia and Vignale, but it failed to grow into a true industrial niche player like Bertone or PininFarina. A great pity, if this Alfa is anything to go by.

Before we get into the weeds on Touring though, let’s get a little clarity on the Alfa Romeo side of the equation. Alfa is one of those carmakers whose models annoyingly tend to have the same nameplates, even though they are nothing alike. The number “1750” can mean a prewar racer or a postwar four-door; there were plenty of “Spiders” about (call the exterminators!) and “GTV” is about as well-defined as “300” is for Mercedes.

What we have here is a Tipo 102 Alfa Romeo 2000 Spider from the late ‘50s/early ‘60s, a totally different vehicle from the Alfa 2000s (Berlina, GTV, Spider or Alfetta) of the ‘70s. The 2000 was basically a thorough restyling of the Alfa 1900, the marque’s first modern unit-body model, which debuted in 1950 and heralded Alfa Romeo’s tardy but highly successful conversion to mass production.

Launched in late 1957, the 2000 was the new senior Alfa, compared to the smaller 1.3 litre Giulietta. It featured a direct descendent of the 1900’s DOHC 4-cyl., bored out to 1975cc and delivering 104hp (DIN) mated to an all-synchromesh 5-speed gearbox.

The saloon (top left) was an in-house job, but Alfa were always keen to involve Italy’s top design houses in developing two-door variants featuring a slightly hotter 115hp (DIN) engine. The first “official” sporty 2000 was the Touring drop-top (top right) that occupies us today, launched in 1958. It was followed by the Bertone Sprint Coupé (bottom right) in 1960. The 4-cyl. 2000 was replaced by the 6-cyl. 2600 in 1962, though strangely enough, the 2000 berlina had a very long career (1960-74, bottom left) in Brazil under the FNM marque.

The 2000 saloon and its 2600 successor, which was basically the same car with a bigger engine and plucked-off fins, failed to find favour among the buying public. The slightly stodgy body was rather heavy, and the car’s performance was seen as unworthy of the Alfa badge.

The 2000 Spider, on the other hand, had the requisite amount of glamour and a little more oomph. As a result, it outsold the factory four-door – a rare occasion when a drop-top found more takers than the saloon. But one could also opt for something more exclusive…

The 1958-62 period was still one in which Italian coachbuilders were busy doing a lot of one-offs, usually with very pleasing results. Here are a few on the Alfa 2000 chassis: Bertone attempted several two-doors (top row) before getting the contract to produce the Sprint; the typical squared musings of Boneschi (middle left); one of Pininfarina’s stunning “Sestrière” coupés (middle right), featuring odd sliding doors; Touring’s beautiful Praho (bottom right) remained unique; Vignale (bottom left) made over a dozen coupés using this Michelotti design.

Between 1958 and 1962, Touring made 3343 Alfa 2000 Spiders, while Alfa Romeo built fewer than 2800 saloons. A pretty disastrous result for the latter, but Touring did very well out of the deal. Care for a small digression on the subject?

Founded in 1926 by Felice Bianchi Anderloni, the Milanese coachbuilder initially used traditional methods, as well as the Weymann patents (i.e. fabric bodies, then all the rage for luxury cars). But as streamlining became fashionable, the necessarily flat panels imposed by the Weymann method meant it quickly fell out of favour. But Touring drew inspiration from Weymann, as well as aircraft construction, to develop their own all-metal lightweight bodymaking technique – the famous Superleggera.

At a time when most cars (especially coachbuilt ones) were still using wood frames, Touring developed a skeleton of steel tubes, clad with aluminium panels. The weight of a typical Superleggera body, such as this 1938 Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 Le Mans racer, was in the 200kg range – less than half of all-steel or ash-framed bodies. Alfa became one of Touring’s top clients, though the other Italian carmakers also regularly sent their chassis for a spot of super-light tailoring.

After the war, Touring’s reputation grew beyond the borders of Italy. Several foreign carmakers came calling upon the carrozzeria, including Aston Martin-Lagonda, Pegaso (top left), Hudson (top roght), Bristol and Sunbeam (bottom left). Some, like Aston or Bristol, bought Touring prototypes and designs, but manufactured the bodies in-house, paying a royalty for using the Superleggera license.

Racers and one-offs, such as the Ferrari, the Alfa 1900 and the Maserati 5000 GT above, were also still created for wealthy clients of course, but that was not where the real money lay. Some carmakers, especially the Italian ones, increasingly needed Touring to manufacture bodies as well design them, like the Lancia Flaminia GT or the Lamborghini 350 GT. From an average of 250-300 cars per annum in the early ‘50s, Touring found itself manufacturing over 1200 in 1959 and twice that amount the next year, thanks in no small part to the Alfa 2000 Spider.

Pininfarina, Vignale and Bertone – soon followed by Zagato – had invested a substantial pile of lire into large and modern production facilities to handle larger body runs. That was the way of the future. So Touring followed suit and opened a factory of their own in 1962, just as they were manufacturing the last batches of Alfa 2000 Spiders, before switching to the (nearly identical) 2600.

Unfortunately, all this extra capacity was perhaps a bit more than what the market warranted. Touring had a very important client in the Rootes Group, for whom they were assembling Hillmans and Humbers for the Italian market. At the end of 1964, Chrysler had taken over the ailing British conglomerate and cancelled the Touring deal.

This, coupled with unexpectedly poor sales of Autobianchi Primula coupés, seemed to send the coachbuilder into a financial tailspin and the new factory ended up repossessed by December 1966. Thus ended carrozzeria Touring, though a sort-of successor company named Touring Superleggera did reappear in 2006.

Touring’s final project, which remained a one-off, was the Fiat 124 cabriolet seen in the last composite image above. It did not feature the complex Superleggera architecture – that would have been overkill and prohibitively expensive. “Mass production” cars made by Touring, such as the Maserati 3500 GT or the Alfa Romeo 2000/2600 Spider, wore more traditional steel bodies. Or, in the case of the Lancia Flaminia GT, a steel unit body structure and aluminium panels.

I guess that enabled Touring and Alfa Romeo to add delicious detailing, such as this biscione-emblazoned rear view mirror, without pushing prices too high.

We’re still talking about a fairly pricy automobile, though. The 1960 advert above shows the Touring Spider retailing at a hefty $5398 – Cadillac territory, in other words. That’s quite a sum for a 4-cyl. car (that couldn’t go anywhere near 126mph, by the way). Mind you, this was addressed.

Presto! Over a grand of discount in under two years. Imagine that nowadays.

So what did you get for your money? By MY 1962, this included entirely symbolic rear seats. Our example is still of the two-seater persuasion, which is more honest. But it is nice to have a sort of parcel shelf / poodle space at hand, which is what rear seats in this kind of car were use as. Did you get a radio, a cigarette lighter or power anything? Nope. But you got gobs of style, a period-perfect painted dash and wind in your hair.

It all makes for quite a compelling package, with one important shortcoming: perhaps Touring could have given their design an extra dash of personality. The 2000 Spider is beautiful and red and every inch an Alfa, but it also looks a bit too much like the (Pininfarina) Giulietta Spider for its own good. Bet some of you didn’t even notice that the first of those two Hoffman ads we just saw depicted the Giulietta. That’s an issue.

It’s not a bad thing for a range to share certain aesthetics, but it’s best to do that from the top down, if you will. In this case, the 2000 came several years after the Giulietta – the senior car took its styling cues from its smaller and more popular stablemate.

The Alfa 2000 Spider was instrumental in giving Touring the impetus to grow and join the likes of Bertone and Pininfarina as major subcontractors for the car industry, both in Italy and abroad. An unsuccessful gambit, sadly. At least we got some very attractive cars in the process.