P3 Alfa

I really enjoyed reading about the Alfa Romeo P3 in the latest Victorian club's Slipstream. I think it is part of the Giddings collection and was in Australia for the Phillip Island historic meeting this year. I can appreciate Wayne's awe at sitting in the car with the realization that it is a 3 or 5 million dollar (or whatever it would be valued at these days) vehicle. Memories came flooding back because I've had a bit of a drive in one (minimal as it was, a push start and a short trip to the scrutineering area). I do remember, though, the twin tailshafts disappearing below the seat and groping around between your legs to change gears. The picture below is the car in question. It is in the pits at Mallala and the event was a race meeting in 1964 I reckon. It was a touring car meeting and the main attraction was Norm Beechey's Holden S4 doing battle with Clem Smith's Valiant etc. etc., etc., but in those days they had formidable fields in the supporting historic events. The Alfa may very likely be the same one as there are only 3 surviving in the world I'm told. There were 2 in Australia once. At the AGP in Lobethal in 1939 the 2 top entries were the P3s of Jack Saywell and Alf Barrett. This particular car was the Barrett one, I'm sure. Alf Barrett campaigned the car in Australian Grands Prix in the thirties and forties and it was taken over by Lex Davison in the early fifties. In the sixties, South Australian, Doug Jarvis drove it in historic events. There were lots of nice ex-AGP cars running then. Lately, except for the V8 specials, quite a few have disappeared overseas. The old blokes of historic racing in SA were really good with us young guys, always free with info and we could help out with assembly of all sorts of Bentleys etc. and even get to go away to hillclimbs intersate. Some of them are still around, like Gavin Sandford-Morgan. Some of us were able to go out to his place, Drumminor, on the Golden Grove Road and mess about in his workshop. I remember looking at a Bugatti front axle on the bench and thinking what a work of art it was. There was a bloke who had a reasonable inheritance who seemed determined to blow it all on racing specials like the Bugatti-Dodge and the Alfa-Ford and some of us were able to pick up the remains and turn them into something after he had discarded them. Tony Cullen, in particular, did a good job on the AlfaV8 and then went on his honeymoon in it. All this in a car that had competed in more than one AGP. Tony has made a replica of that car, at great expense, that appears so authentic that he's been invited to bring it along to the Lobethal re-enactment later this year.

The other car pictured was at the same race meeting and is the Maserati of Colin Hyams. Colin didn't seem a lot older than us but he must have had a few bob and I mention him because he had a genuine LeMans GT40 that I managed to drive around the Adelaide Showgrounds. The Sporting Car Club had a car show in Centennial Hall called the Cavalcade of Cars and the GT40 was one of the attractions. This was in the days before security companies and the young members were the overnight guards and helped with putting the cars in their places and so on.
On my night to be on duty I remember having a comfortable sleep in the back of a huge Packard limousine that was originally the chauffered mayoral car for the Nuriootpa council in the days before amalgamations and when Mayors had flash cars. This was later to be my wedding car and was also used in the film "On The Beach" so Ava Gardiner and Gregory Peck had parked their bums on my comfortable bed.

While on the subject of AGPs, my dad, when I was in primary school, took me to the AGP at Port Wakefield, so I was a witness to former Bolwell Club member, Keith Rilstone coming 5th in the Rilstone Special. When I was even younger, dad took me to Adelaide Oval to see the great Don Bradman play in his last test match against England. He was out for a duck!