Alfa Romeo 8C 2900B Spider Pininfarina

Vehicle Overview

This Alfa Romeo 8C 2900B Spider Pininfarina fetched over $4 million USD, a record auction price for a car this decade, at a Christie’s International Motor Cars sale of rare autos in Pebble Beach, CA, 30 August, 1999. The two passenger 8C 2900b Alfa Cabriolet, one of less than 30 ever made, was raced in the Mille Miglia race in 1938. The final price of $4,072,500 was over double the previous high of $2 million for a Ferrari at a Christie’s auction last year. Long believed to have been lost, this 8C 2900B started life as a cycle-fendered competition car. The car’s original owner was Piero Dusio, who would later establish Cisitalia. He extensively raced the car at events like the Mille Miglia. Chassis 412.012 was soon after its racing career lengthened and re-bodied by Pinin Farina with this elegant Cabriolet body. It was sold to Switzerland soon after the War and eventually ended up in the United States, fitted with a Chrysler engine. By the time Simon Moore published the first edition of his tome on the 8C 2900 Alfa Romeo, only the whereabouts of the original engine was known. In 1989 Moore was contacted by the owner of 412012, who had plans of restoring the car. Eventually a deal was made and both the engine and remarkably well preserved car were acquired by the late Terry Cohn. The noted collector had Tony Merrick completely restore the car. The work was completed in 1992 and in the following years Cohn used the car extensively. He, for example, drove the unique machine down to Italy and back to compete in the Mille Miglia. Unfortunately he was forced to offer the car in the 1999 Christie’s Pebble Beach auction due to illness. With a large part of the proceeds going to a cancer charity, the car sold for a staggering $4 million. Now part of a prominent American collection, chassis 412012 returned to Pebble in 2005 to celebrate Alfa Romeo’s 95th anniversary. (Source: The Immortal 2.9, by Simon Moore)