Historic Sport Sedans

[John McKechnie]

The history of the Alfetta- as told to me by Barry Algie- goes back to the mid 70s. They had just rebuilt and sold a Jensen Interceptor and Ian with his share of the money wanted to build a wilder Sports Sedan than Barry.
Barry had bought a HT Monaro from Ace Towing that had been stolen and torched.He already had the ZF transaxle from the Katipo MJ 70.
Ian was in raptures with the Alfetta shape, most perfect aerodynamic and was rear transaxle also.
There were no bodies available here, so where to get one?
So the brothers went off to that well known centre of fashion to get the most fashionable body- Milan in Italy.
At the factory there were bodies aplenty, but they were told to go to the Agent in Arezzo, a nearby district.
There they bought the body for 2 million lire- NZ$2000.
They had the body, and were directed to a wrecking yard(?) to get the rest of the parts to make up a car including the transaxle.
All this they loaded into a crate and sent to Montreal in Canada.
When they caught up with it, the crate had been opened and some stuff taken. Thats why the car had no door handles.
Next stage was moving in from one side of Canada to Victoria on the other side.
As finances were low, it was cheaper to buy an old truck, load it themselves and team drive non stop.
Some amusing and nasty things happened on the way, but after 4 days they arrived and sent it to NZ.
As it was not so easy importing in those days, he had had to buy an Alfa that was wrecked, show Customs that he was getting a replacement body even before they left.Proof was needed for importation.
There was another trip to Milan, this time Auto Delta to get the flares, however they werent available to be sold.
They contented themselves with looking through the windows to the workshop.
Ian then made the flares to suit.
The body is 1977, it arrived in 1978 and first ran in 1984.
Barrys Monaro was started in 1975 and ran 1985.
Alfetta still has the original V6 transaxle.

Missed this part. so will add-
The original idea was to fit a Porsche 930 Turbo motor , but as time went by was now not available, so the next decision was what to put in an Alfetta body- simple Ian came rolled up and Barry was dummying a Chev up ............
Seriously though, they were into Chevs, most F5000s were Chev ,light and transaxle .
At about that time the Halliday Bros had a motor available- the ex Ken Smith Lola Chapparal 302 Chev V8.
So that was purchased and went in to the car

The absolute uniqueness of the 2 Algie cars and Graeme Addis Charger are indeed testament to the enthusiasm people have to these Sports Sedans.

This thread welcomes any build stories, anecdotes on any of our Historic Sports Sedans, Allcomers and Oscas that we look forward to seeing on our tracks.