In 1967 ALFA Romeo developed the T33 ‘Periscope’ for racing in the 2 litre / 122 cui sports car category, while the V8 engine designed by Orazio Satta and Giuseppe Bosso was extremely powerful the cars were badly prepared and lethal suffering many reliability issues, though one did win an insignificant hill climb in Belgium on it’s debut and another won an equally unimportant sports car race at Vallengua.

Despite the lack of any significant international success and the deaths of Jean Rolland and Leo Cella in testing accidents ALFA Romeo decided to defray the costs of their competition efforts by building a road car based on the T33.

The resulting Tipo 33 Stradale road car with a wheel base 6 inches longer than the racer is one of the most alluring vehicles ever seen, featuring unusual dihedral opening butterfly doors.

The racing pedigree of the 33 Stradale is patently obvious in every every sinuous detail and the car has the performance to match the looks, from test the car reaches 60 mph in 5.5 seconds when required and a top speed of 160 mph should be possible.

All of this technology came with a $17,000 price tag making the 33 Stradale the most expensive car on the market in 1968. Only 18 of these cars were built along with the one off 33.2, Iguana, Carabo and Navajo concept cars.

Thanks for joining me on the lawn at Goodwood House, I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !