Stichting Club Alfa Romeo Bezitters

The same heritage applied to the multiple race and championship winning Lotus-Alfa 18 originally driven by Syd van der Vyver in the South African Drivers Championship of 1960 and 1961. Its new owner, Brian Horwood, explained to us its peculiar life after its days at the front were over. Having been sold on in 1962, it received some Lotus 21 mods before its third owner transformed it into a Lotus 19-lookalike sportscar! With its tub widened to become a regulatory two-seater, it got a big-block Oldsmobile engine stuck in the back, that was later enlarged to an amazing 4.2 litres. In this form it raced on well into the sixties before it was stored away. A couple of years ago Horwood recovered it from its hiding place. The first thing he did was to turn it back into a monoposto. He also found the original Alfa Romeo Giulia 4-cylinder block, but its gaskets and valve train were worn down. Several experts told him that an overhaul would be a costly and possibly terminal exercise, with damage done to the cylinder head, but deciding he had nothing to lose Horwood took the engine apart, to find that it actually hadn't got a cylinder head in the traditional sense of the term. Repairing the inner sanctum of the engine then proved to be a cheap and simple affair. "But against the other guys I have absolutely no chance. Those 8-cylinder cars will blow me off." But then he had hurt his chances badly by damaging his Climax-engined Lotus on a wet track during the Silverstone Historic Festival just weeks earlier. To our delight, we must say, as he would have brought his regular mount instead of this wonderful rarity!

Nog wat Zuid Afrikaans race-geweld.