Alfa Romeo 1900 TI (Carrera Panamericana 1954)

[1959scudetto]

The last Carrera Panamericana, the famous Mexican road race, was held in November  1954: for the first time, a new class – European touring cars – was created for sedans with up to 2000 cc.

Of the 19 starters, 11 were Alfa Romeo 1900 TI’s (among them 5 works cars) which totally dominated the class but they had no opposition: only one single Borgward Isabella and a bunch of VW beetles.

So they had a race within themselves:  Five made it to the finish line and took the first 5 places in class, beating lots of stronger cars (4 finished in the top 20 of a total of 80 finishers),. Alfa Romeo advertised “the family car that wins races” and promoted their new post-war creation worldwide.

Leo Models/Ixo made a nice 1/24 die-cast 15 years ago, Scale design did a fantastic decal sheet (made by Cartograf, designed by Mike Quarterman) which has some issues concerning size and color, but color pictures are almost impossible to find on these cars.  And finally, Jack modeling makes excellent steel wheels for the Alfa 1900: Jason created them for me on order and is selling them also to the public – highly recommended and an absolute must for this transition.

Here is a "WIP": 

Some small modifications were necessary with bumpers, exhaust and bug deflectors.

On to the models:

 # 251 is the class-winning works car of Consalvo Sanesi  (15^th overall):

 #268 the works car of Bruno Bonini which DNFed after a blown tire caused suspension failure:

 #265 is a private entrant from Guatemala: David Cerezo plunged off a bridge and wrecked his car totally:

Here is the whole bunch together:

 

Edited April 14 by 1959scudetto