1938 Alfa Romeo 6C 2300 B Mille Miglia Spyder

I took this photograph in the paddock at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 1998.

After the class winning success with a berlinetta bodied 6C 2300B at the Mille Miglia in 1937, Carrozzeria Touring created a new Spyder bodied machine the following year for Count Giovanni Lurani's Scuderia Ambrosiana. The construction of this car, using the very first Alfa Romeo 6C 2300 B Mille Miglia chassis, 815001, and a 2,309cc 6-cylinder inline engine, was overseen by Alfa Romeo's chief engineer Vittorio Jano. It was entered in the Sport Nazionale category of the Italian Championship by Scuderia Ambrosiana to be driven by Franco Cortese who dominated and won the championship by scoring seven victories out of the eight races in which he competed. The car was also entered in the 1938 Mille Miglia race where Cortese added another class win to the 6C 2300 tally, and finished in ninth place in the overall classification. It competed in various other races in 1938, 1939 and 1940, then after the war it was rebodied by Pinin Farina and after a spell in Egypt it was acquired by Squadron Leader Peter Piper who brought the car to England, where he competed with it, and where it got the registration number VNO 323. In the 1970s the then owner John Coombs had a new body constructed following the original Touring design.