New Lives T-33 

 Prototype 750.33.001

by Vladimir Pajevic

From that day in March of 1967, many years had passed by... 49 years to be exact.. and we had received no news about the racing story of prototype n. 001. It won the first race at Fléron, Belgium and then it registered no other positive results.  It fell off the radar screen entirely.

In 1968, only one year later from that initial victory, with the evolution of the new T-33 cars on the immediate horizon, the prototype no. 001 had disappeared completely from the world's competition racing stage.

The triumphal progression of new T-33 cars continued on for ten years with a string of newer, faster models until the last model, the 33 SC Turbo, in 1977, ended the glorious run of the 33 model. The 33 SC Turbo had a 3 liters engine with 12 cylinders, a turbokompressor KKK and 640 HP.

The chassis 001 literally laid in a junk heap in the Autodelta courtyard among the other scraps remaining after the closure in Settimo Milanese of the Autodelta walled manufacturing facility in 1982.  The racing department was transferred to Senago, where Euro Racing, the new racing department of Alfa Romeo, was not interested to the past glorious story.

At that point, Ing. Carlo Chiti became extremely embittered to have been assigned, in a disgraceful manner, to roles much less and less important.

Along came Marco Cajani, an architect from Milan, a great fan of Alfa Romeo automobiles and of its racing history.   He had the skill to find the first prototype of the 33 in 1986 within the confines of that junk heaped courtyard at # 7 Via Enrico Fermi in Settimo Milanese.  Cajani is also a good driver and in his life has won many titles in the European Challenge for Historic Touring Cars and in other important races.

Carefully and skillfully... employing his best diplomatic demeanor, Cajani eventually succeeded in buying the car. The chassis was mostly complete and in one piece... there was also its engine, gearbox, suspension pieces and many other parts among the scraps of what many years ago were the winning racing cars of Autodelta.

No more dogs ran within the Autodelta courtyard, like they used to do when Ing. Chiti took it upon himself to personally collect stray dogs and cats on the streets of Milan and give them shelter, medical attention, food and another chance at life.

No one would think today that... exactly in this place ...were built the cars that would have won everything on the race circuits of the world.

Cajani, knowing the value of what he had found, spent many years looking for missing pieces that had become separated form the rubble pile, but at the end he succeeded to pick up all the miscellaneous components of the car # 001.

A few parts of the body were lost, no one knows where, but Cajani asked Giovanni Giordanengo, very skilled at reconstructing pieces of oldtimers, to complete the work.

In his workshop in Cuneo (Piedmont) he had already rebuilt the bodies of many beautiful oldtimers, working together with many car museums throughout the world. He was the master who was destined to give new life to the T-33 Fléron, the prototype chassis number 750.33.001!

Following every original shape and curve of designer Scaglione and carefully forming the individual body panels of this beautiful car with old world wooden forms and tiny hammer techniques, Giordanengo for all his hard work eventually brought the T-33  Fleron back to life. 

For the mechanical section he entrusted Carlo Facetti, the great tuner and Autodelta driver. The final restoration was ended inside the walls of the “Scuderia del Portello”

Today the T-33 Fléron is preserved among the other beautiful cars of the Cajani collection... beautiful cars restored with love and passion to preserve the historical memory of these wonderful masterworks. Time to time the T-33 Fleron is returned to race tracks broadcasting the sound of its wonderful engine.

All thanks to Mr. Marco Cajani...

Alfa Romeo “750.33.014”: Back to the Future

Once owned by Aldo Bardelli, now owned by Alessandro Carrara

From the book “Una strada, Una Corsa, un Ingegnere” 

by Vallero Fagioli and Luigi Pulcini

 Reprinted by permission of the Authors

Usually manufacturers of racing cars organize directly or through an “owner's fan club” an "Historic Register", where enthusiasts can learn the full story of every car produced in their factory.

But, unfortunately this has not been the case with Ing. Chiti's Autodelta.  We here at "Autodelta Golden Years.com" have elected to construct a Historic Register ourselves...starting with, appropriately, the T-33  750.33.001 the famous Fleron Alfa Romeo.

When the prestigious Tipo 33/2, partially designed and developed by Ing. Chiti and driven in period races by Aldo Bardelli, a racing driver from Pistoia in the 60's and 70's, this car has finally returned to Pistoia after almost thirty years.

We feel strongly to retrace its history as far and as completely as possible.

The Alfa Romeo Tipo 33, VIN 750.33.014, had its debut at the 1968 edition of 24 Hours of Daytona, driven by Casoni / Riscaldi... at the end of the race those drivers achieved 7^th place overall.

The same car was entered by Autodelta appeared at the Targa Florio in 1968, where the main antagonists was Team Porsche with many 907 / 2200cc 8 cylinder cars.

Alfa Romeo took part in that race with three T-33/2 with the following racers: Baghetti / Biscardi, Galli / Giunti, Casoni / Bianchi (with the car 014) and one T-33 2.5 liter car driven by the team Vaccarella  / Schutz.

In the end, Porsche was the winner in a very exciting and hard fought race with the crew Eford / Maglioli; Giunti / Galli arriving in the second place with one T-33 (less than three minutes later) and  the Casoni / Bianchi car ending the race the third place with the T-33/2 (Vin 014).

The same car (Vin 014) was back on a race on the 25^th of August 1968 at the Zeltweg G.P. (Austria), where Autodelta intrusted the car to the VDS Team owned by the Belgian Count Rudi Van Der Straeten; the pilot was Herr Trosch.

We find again “our” T-33 (Vin 014) one year later at the Targa Florio driven by Casoni-Spartaco Dini (from Florence).

The car was severely damaged during the practice, but Casoni found a drive with the Scuderia Tridentina that was racing with an Alfa Romeo T-33 too.

A formal document in Aldo Bardelli's personal library, records that the change of ownership of  the “Autovettura  AlfaRomeo 33 Tipo Sport Daytona telaio 750.33.014 usata, nello stato di fatto in cui si trova come vista e accettata completa di: batteria, cimtura, ruota di scorta, alleggerita (used car, as it is seen and accepted complete of: battery, belt, spare wheel, lightened) on the 17^th of June 1969.

And for this car begins a season running on uphill races and circuits in Italy and all over the world until 1971.

During 1970 the car undergoes a particular change by Autodelta workshop. On 1969, before delivery to Bardelli, the orignal 33 Tipo Daytona had been lightened by removal of the roof and the side panels. On 1970 it underwent another slimming cure and became a “spider” to allow Bardelli to be more performing in the Prototypes of the 70's. 

Only three T-33/2  cars received this treatment directly from Autodelta.

After three seasons, with many kilometers on his shoulders up and down along Italian roads, Aldo Bardelli ended his racing activity and sold the car to Giulio Dubbini from Padua.

Some time after the car “Vin 014” left Italy and arrived in the Peter Kaus  collection of sport cars. In 1987 Kaus with Hans Holger and Frenzel GmbH  organized the “Rosso Bianco Museum” in an abandoned factory, with “our” T-33/2 in the collection for many years.

Today the T-33/2 Vin 014, designed and developed by Ing. Chiti (born in Pistoia) and lead in the races by Aldo Bardelli, a racing driver from Pistoia, came back to Pistoia, with a ceremony at Villa di Groppoli (PT) on the 15th of May 2010.  

The car is now owned by Mr Alessandro Carrara.

Mr Alessandro Carrara and his T-33/2  AR750.33.014

The driver is none other than the original Aldo Bardelli who was the champion with this T-33/2 Spider in the 1960's and 1970's, pictured (left to right) along with former website Italian editor Renzo Carbonaro,  website Team Manager Robert Little, vehicle owner Alessandro Carrara and former German website editor Ulrich Zensen.  

This photo opportunity was made possible through the courtesy of Mr. Carrara.

Mr. Aldo Bardelli with his original AR750.33.014  Tipo T-33/2 now owned by Aldo Carrara.

This car # 192 is T-33/2  AR750.033.014 shown prior to the start of the 1968 Targa Florio. 

The drivers of this Autodelta car was the team of Bianchi / Casoni.

The car was soon converted into a Spider version and sold to Aldo Bardelli who won an astounding number of races and hillclimbs with this car!

Alfa Romeo AR750.80.019   

Owned by Curtis Leaverton

Iowa, USA

1970 Autodelta T33/3 AR750.80.019 was built by Autodelta in the summer of 1970. It has a continuous and extensive history file.  

In the summer of 1970 it was driven by Andrea de Adamich, Henri Pescarolo and Gijs Van Lennep,  finishing 2nd overall in the 1970 Österreichring and also a 2nd overall podium finish at the 1971 Targa Florio.  It won the inaugural Le Mans Classic in 2002.  Its last race appearance was at the 2010 Philip Island Classic in Australia. The car was then sold in 2010 with two bodies and numerous spare parts to several other purchasers until Mr. Leaverton acquired the car in 2013.

The car represents the final stage of development of the T33/3 which was first introduced in 1969. The T33/3 was Alfa’s first monocoque racing car, based on an aluminum cell structure largely inspired by existing British designs ...reinforced with titanium alloy,...extremely tough and durable.  

AR750.80.019 was the last version of 33/3 family, with new developments like the switch to smaller 13 inch diameter front wheels, new front suspension and brakes, and new nose, lower and squarer in design.  Engine was N° 10580*0069  

Alfa Romeo AR115.12.012 

33TS12 1976  Tubulare-Scatolato

Owned by the Simeone Museum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

By Vladimir Pajevic

After the triumph of the World Championship season of 1975, Autodelta S.p.A. faced difficult years ahead… with new Alfa Romeo management personnel coming on board opposed to the useless dissipation of money devoted exclusively to racing and motor sports activity.

This state-owned factory built under the brilliant leadership of outgoing Alfa Romeo S.p.A. President Giuseppe Luraghi was now in hands of a political bureaucracy interested only in achieving goals in political circles.

The Director-General of Autodelta Ing. Carlo Chiti tried to navigate in that strange swamp, completely aware that to quit racing and literally throw away the potential of the T-33 project would be an enormous error and cause lasting damage to the rich Italian motor racing heritage.

The tremendous torque achieved by his new flat V12 …designed also for the Brabham-Alfa in Formula 1 races was found to place undue stress and undesirable torque demands on his otherwise stiff and well-designed tubular chassis used in the T-33 since 1973.

In search of improvements in major rigidity and stiffness of his TT (Telaio-Tubolare) chassis, Ing. Chiti returned to his previous designs of a monocoque cell as the cradle for the engine to be used in his new 1976 33TS12 car.

Relying heavily with his decade-long partner Ing. Gherardo Severi, Ing. Chiti developed a new panel-rivetted structure using the good geometry of the existing tubular frame.

This new chassis, denominated TS (Tubolare-Scatolato, to distinguish it from TT, and the following year SC Scatolato), was entered into a testing schedule during the very early months of 1976 at the Alfa Romeo test track at Balocco.

Some changes that were made included adopting a new Girling braking system in front and rear, relocating the gearbox ahead of the differential, and the selection of Goodyear tires.  This car was a bit heavier than the previous TT version weighing in at 720 kg / 1587 lb. opposed to 670 kg / 1477 lb. of the TT.

Initial tests were promising.   Ing. Chiti hoped to have the car ready and officially entered for the April 4^th, 1976 Nürburgring 300 Kms.  World Sports Car Championship race.   This new chassis… AR115.12.012 and its twin AR115.12.011 were race ready, waiting for the occasion to show their potential.  Responsibility and pressure on the backs of Ing. Chiti and his engineering staff for the successful entry of his new chassis was great and they moved with careful prudence.

But uneasy internal politics inside the Alfa assembly plant in Arese, about ten miles north…cancelled that entry and also forced Autodelta to skip the Monza 4 hour race three weeks later.

The AR115.12.012 car finally entered its first race… round three of the World Sports Car Championship 500 Km Imola on May 23^rd in the hands of two great drivers, Arturo Merzario and Vittorio Brambilla …with the single Autodelta entry sporting N° 1 on the bodywork.   The car finished 2° overall and was impressive in some parts of the track. The potential of the new design was clear and Chiti was satisfied with the car’s behavior.

But fortune was not on his side and in two other subsequent occasions, banal failures stopped AR115.12.012 on its way.

At Coppa Florio in Sicily on June 27^th with Arturo Merzario and Mario Casoni, it was a front suspension failure, and in its last appearance of the 1976 season at Salzburgring, the failure of the oil pump despite achieving fastest time of qualifying… decreed the end of the season.

The short and not brilliant race career for AR115.12.012 certainly doesn’t describe faithfully the quality and potentiality of this racing jewel. It was the mix of bad luck, wrong factory politics and even dubious team decisions that kept the car distant from possible success on the tracks.

In 1977, the car was mainly used as a spare Autodelta team car and for specific testing as an inscribed “T” car for 500 km Dijon and Coppa Florio with Jean-Pierre Jarier and Spartaco Dini as drivers. The only race where AR115.12.012 was entered was at the Estoril event with Giorgio Francia and Spartaco Dini and finished 3° overall...clearly showing the potential of the car.

The lack of good fortune for AR115.12.012 continued even after 1976 season, when Autodelta introduced the full SC version (with small and almost insignificant differences to TS variant), and AR115.12.014 and AR115.12.015 and their Turbo cousin AR115.12.016.  Those won without effort in the World Sports Car Championship in 1977. 

Together with  AR115.12.011 it was the last ‘true’ 11512 car born under Ing. Chiti’s supervision...  It is described as the best 33TS12 car existing.

Official Historical Transcript by Autodelta Golden Years.com of

Autodelta Chassis AR115.12.005

 Owned by the Bottinelli Family of Switzerland

 by Vladimir Pajevic

The history of AR115.12.005 is a story full of blind spots, misty dark corners and non-confirmed sources. 

The only certainty is that AR115.12.005 truly exists and its mysterious appearances from time to time can be traced back to its fabrication during the late 1973 - early 1974 period. 

Let us explain the known facts... 

From the first constructed examples built by Autodelta S.p.A. of Settimo Milanese in 1973, the lineage of 33TT12... the 115.12.xxx series type... was poorly memorialized and documented.   And during the production years of that model type only a few of those magnificent cars were historically followed and correctly described. 

That is a pity, because this new chassis series was the first true Alfa Romeo to win a World Manufacturers Championship in 1975.   Alfa Romeo last captured a World Championship in 1950 and 1951 with their 'Alfetta' series of Formula One cars.  

The racing life of AR115.12.005 coincided with a difficult period of Alfa Romeo corporate life.

From the resignation of Alfa Romeo CEO Giuseppe Luraghi - a great supporter of the Alfa Romeo Autodelta factory racing department - to the arrival of a new breed of managers displaying outright hostility and a combative nature to any form of Autodelta involvement with the brand...the new group deeply intended to severely limit financial support to Autodelta. 

The recorded histories of Autodelta competition cars had been notoriously sketchy and insufficiently documented in the 1970's even before the transfer of some of the assets of the Autodelta racing division from Settimo Milanese to a new group of individuals in Senago, Italy calling itself “Euroracing”.   

That group in the early 1980's took over the physical assets of Autodelta in a hostile manner, trashing or selling off marvelous treasured assets and throwing away paper files with reckless abandon.   The only relevant core Autodelta archive materials, perhaps the most significant paper database, went mysteriously missing during the move when almost all documentation was left carelessly in absolute disarray in the old factory. 

Ing. Chiti was furious, desperate but impotent to act in any direction.  His only true interest was racing as he tried to comply with the awful rules and limitations imposed upon him by Massacesi and others.

A particularly egregious example of the dissolution of Autodelta history by the new custodians of the Alfa Romeo racing brand was the plight of the Alfa Romeo "Fleron", the first prototype constructed by Autodelta in 1966.  Its remains were discovered by an enthusiast / historian who discovered the disassembled remains of the car hidden underneath a huge pile of rusting scrap metal and debris found in the courtyard of the old factory.

Some papers, however, were saved by Autodelta engineer and driver Roberto Bussinello...however that portion of the archive is incomplete and without the possibility of being seriously cross-examined.  As a result, we know almost nothing of the cars and their period exploits from an internal ‘factory standpoint’. 

And finally, some official Autodelta documents were of dubious reliability... generated at times to satisfy factory management and the IRI.  It is fairly well understood that Ing. Chiti was a driven man...having maintained no interest in what ever happened 'in the past'.    He maintained absolutely no interest in yesterday’s facts and old data.  And as a direct result, the archives of Autodelta were never described as evidence of being well-organized.   With treachery and the mysterious role of Euroracing … with help and ‘understanding’ from the new president of Alfa Romeo S.p.A. Ettore Massacesi and Mario Felici, the suicide sale of Autodelta treasure occurred.

Thus, the history of the first group of realized 33TT12 cars is based on occasional annotations and third-party sources such as photographs taken by general circulation magazines and individual enthusiasts. 

In any event, the most plausible history of the 33TT12, AR115.12xxx series is this one:

As the development of the original 'TT" V-8 tubular space frame chassis introduced late in 1971 evolved, a slightly larger chassis to accommodate the larger twelve cylinder engine was created and was ready for competition in early 1973. 

This new chassis was rigidly reinforced by using the lower half of the tubular body as a stressed section...providing exceptional stiffness to the construction. 

Suspension was independent all-round and ventilated brakes were mounted in-board at the rear. 

Two additional new solutions applied to the twelve cylinder chassis design was the fabrication of a transverse, five-speed gearbox and the modification of the fiberglass / tubular body to feature two types of integrated rear wing patterns. 

The first completed chassis used mainly for evaluating the new solutions was AR115.12.001 and survives to this very day in the collection of a New York enthusiast. 

AR115.12.002 was finally made ready to make its debut at the 1973 Spa Francorchamps round of the World Manufacturers Championship series in early May but the car was completely destroyed in a pre-race crash after a tire failed at high speed. 

During that same 1973 season, AR115.12.003 and AR115.12.004 started at the Targa Florio event but both examples crashed in the race ...although the car driven by Rolf Stommelen set the fastest lap of the race. 

The already produced AR115.12.005 and AR115.12.007 continued to make occasional appearances at a few races conducted by a variety of different organizers until the end of the season, although their record of achievements demonstrated a combination of accidents and poor reliability. 

In only one race did the cars manage to finish well. 

At the Le Castellet circuit in February of 1974, Autodelta had been testing new Firestone tires and possible new body configurations for the renewed and highly promising 33TT12 and it's 12 cylinder flat powerplant.

At Le Castellet during pre-season testing there were two cars, most probably the AR115.12.005 and AR115.12.007, both with different solutions of body design, short and mid-length tail bonnets and different aspiration variants. The day chosen was not a good one for testing because of wet, cold and very windy atmospheric conditions. 

During practice, Rolf Stommelen... using the short tail body configuration... experienced tire failure at high speed with the car departing into the air… hitting the enclosure of the track and then hitting the ground from more than meter and half height.

Fortunately, the driver was unharmed but the car was seriously damaged with a badly bent chassis and a completely destroyed suspension. 

A new chassis was sent from Settimo Milanese and all necessary proven components, including the engine were transplanted from the damaged AR115.12.005, to the newly arrived chassis, presumably AR115.12.006.  Testing was finished with that car in a mid-length tail version. 

Alfa Romeo entered the 1974 season with four race-ready cars and another four cars in final.  Among the alterations made were taller air intake 'snorkels' behind the driver and the use of various rear tail configurations for different tracks.  Autodelta twelve cylinder cars finished the first race of the season at the Monza 1000 Kilometer race in 1-2-3 order.  Chassis AR115.12.008 won the race followed by AR115.12.007 and finishing third was AR115.12.006.  Data was recovered in this case from an old recovered microfiche.

Described details, in general, have been based on annotations and period photos and also Autosprint magazine articles published in February and first part of March 1974. 

The damaged chassis of AR115.12.005 was sent to Settimo Milanese to be repaired and AR115.12.006 ...now residing in the Alfa Romeo Museo Storico in Arese continued its racing life with an inherited engine from 005.  The original motor that had been installed in chassis 005 February 1974 was AR115.12A061... possibly the same engine now in 006.

In that difficult period and struggling with a limited budget and a newly-installed factory management team hostile to the racing activity of Autodelta, Director General Ing. Carlo Chiti tried to ‘invent’ a way to earn more money to apply to further Autodelta activity.

With that general concept in mind, Ing. Chiti organized shows all around the world, displaying Alfa Romeo racing cars among its production cars...aiming to aggregate new sponsors and earn new money. 

The AR115.12.005 chassis was eventually repaired and completed with dubiously assembled engine components... just enough to achieve its exact outward appearance and well-known look.   The car was used in numerous occasions among auto show displays that gained public interest for Alfa Romeo production cars and Autodelta and its racing activity. 

This chassis AR115.12.005 was then exposed for the first time in Switzerland, and then, after several European exhibitions ...was sent in the USA again as an exposition car. 

For at least one year it was shown at Alfa Romeo Inc. National Headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.  Some vital internal engine and electrical components were found to have been omitted in the reconstruction of the car.

Its further history is unknown or cannot be verified by Autodelta Golden Years.com.

In our Autodelta Golden Years data archive, the 005 portfolio has only attributed not perfectly documented photos, and generally this overall history cannot be based on proven facts, but it has a plausible story with relatively good standards of proofs.   

Copyright 2020

First date of publication:  March 16, 2020

All Rights Reserved

Robert B. Little

Team Manager

Autodelta Golden Years.com

New York

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