Classic Alfa Forums

The S1 Ti I purchased from Sydney Australia in October arrived by container in the UK before Xmas.

A friend collected the car for me from Southampton as I was out of the UK. I went to see the car in the metal down in Hampshire for the first time on Sunday 28.12.14.

Purchasing cars from overseas unseen, relying on vendor supplied photos is a high risk business at the best of times.

I realise now that I was very lucky to be able to buy this car as I was originally the under bidder for it in an Ebay auction. When the winning bidder failed to complete the purchase I was approached by the vendor to ask if I would be interested to make an offer. In the event I was able to negotiate a significantly reduced price compared to what had been chalked up on Ebay

Having seen the car I am really pleased with it, and very relieved it has not turned out to be a lemon. The car is honestly best described as a time warp, being as complete and original as any S1 Ti I have seen for sale in the last 20 years.

Interior is amazing, perfect dash, near perfect door cards, rear cards, headlining, seats, carpets, centre console, under-dash shelf etc. How a flimsy Alfasud interior managed to survive for 38 years in hot, humid and dusty Australia to remain in virtually showroom condition is a wonder to behold. It must have been kept garaged all its life as well as being driven carefully and sparingly by its one retired lady owner. It was stored from 1999 until 2011 when the person I bought it from purchased it from a deceased estate, which no doubt helped preserve it.

Bodywork is very good overall with nothing but light surface rust found anywhere underneath. There are some minor paint defects/damage but nothing too serious. It seems to have had a partial re spray/blow over in the past 3 years due to faded paint. The only fly in the ointment is evidence of a bump in the front slam panel which was poorly repaired. The bonnet is a welded hinge S1 and the grille is undamaged so it looks like an old repair, but I will need to fit a new slam panel to get it up to the standard of the rest of the car. The previous owner cut out access holes in the front and rear chassis legs/wheel arches and removed all the foam filling despite there being no signs of rust. Pretty neatly done but I will be improving the finish to make the welds where the panel cut-outs were fitted back and painted over invisible when I have time. Other small things are a missing/damaged "Ti" roof sticker, minor bumper corner damage, cracks in the lower edge of the front spoilers from the shipping container ropes, one outer headlamp with corroded reflector, various exterior fixings, plastic plugs, clips etc. that are non original, damaged or missing. Luckily I have collected up a large stock of Sud parts (including many S1 Ti) over the years and believe I have most of what is required to get the car into what I hope will be show condition.

Some interesting unique features of the specification to meet Australian type approval rules include; a single Weber carb with automatic choke system, a blanking plug under the steering column where the choke control would normally be, a belt driven thermactor (smog) pump next to the alternator, a large black upright canister made by Fispa containing the smog filter - located next to the smog pump near the front bumper mounting, a dimmer switch for the instrument cluster, a parking brake on light next to the hazard warning switch under the dash. There is also a label on the headlining for tyre pressures and vehicle weights as well as riveted aluminium plates under bonnet referring to various Australian certifications.

I will post further on the Forum as work to cosmetically refurbish the car progresses over the next few months.

I am aiming to get the car registered and MOT'd for UK use ASAP with a view to having many of the easily sorted issues fixed in time for Spring Alfa Day. The event takes place on Sunday 26th April at RAF Duxford according to the announcement on the AROC website. Hopefully, there will be a good turn out of Series 1's Ti's on the day.

Here are some pics of the Ti taken on Sunday:

Blimey that looks excellent. As you say , how did it cope so well with the Australian climate ?

Found any spiders in there? Funnel web is the nasty one in Sydney I think. Still this weather will sort that out.

Good luck and hope you do not find any nasty surprises.

Wow !! What a gem.
Hopefully see you at Duxford.

Kev is going to be green with envy,he said his was pretty sorted when he got it but yours is taking the mick.

Yes - I can report having lived in Sydney once upon a time that the Funnel Web is viewed as the most poisonous of the spiders and one called the Red Back is not good news either - as far as I remember.

So far none of our eight legged Antipodean friends have emerged from the Alfasud and hopefully the recent cold weather will have exterminated any remaining creepy crawlies that were looking to set up home in the UK.

Looks a great car and a fine addition to the UK collective

Interesting to see the anti smog set up!!

wow, what a car

that just looks amazing. if that cost you less than £10k to get here it's a steal, really is.

the carpet colour is a really inetesting part for me to see, i'm not having any luck finding an original S1 ti carpet and am reduced to using a black one and trying to colour it to nearer what they look like in the brochures. yours doesn't look that far from black anyway?

brilliant find.

now, please. you MUST bring it to the suds in the sun meet

Truly a beauty!!! You must be a very satisfied guy at this point in time. Enjoy this time warp car. The amount of S1 TI's in the UK is, although relatively low, I think a number many European countries envy. The dedication shown to perfectly restore them as well as some of the members of this forum have illustrated.

Personally I truly envy your amazing door cards, please keep me in mind if you want to get rid of them

That looks very nice .

Same as mine, but better.
Interesting it has the plain steering wheel from the base four door.

The steering wheel item is indeed an odd thing, it's a Berline (or Giardinetta) steering wheel and not a TI one, but if that's it you can count your blessings and that's what it looks like.

Wow what a superb car.

I'm definately going to Duxford now!

Looking through the documents that came with IVP 896 it was interesting to see the details of the original retired lady owner.

I wonder if any of our Australian forum members know anything about Henly's Motors the Alfa Romeo dealer who supplied the car in 1977?
Would be very interested in any information about this dealership and any of the Alfasud's they supplied that are still in existence.
Love the Australian tax disc too, this will definitely be staying on the car.

I wondered where this car has got to from your other thread but you must be over the moon with it looking at the pictures

Is it an 1186 or 1286cc engine ? Must be a later car than some of the other S1 ti's as it has the plastic air filter box and header tank

Looking forward to seeing this at Duxford now

Have fun doing your few bit and bobs

Your Sud as well as being the same colour as mine, also has the plastic header and air filter lid. I wonder how close youe VIN number is to mine, which according to the books is about 56 from last of the 1186cc Tis.

Is Duxford going to be a big Sud meet?

dralf1965 wrote:Your Sud as well as being the same colour as mine, also has the plastic header and air filter lid. I wonder how close youe VIN number is to mine, which according to the books is about 56 from last of the 1186cc Tis.

Is Duxford going to be a big Sud meet?

there will be a good few suds at SAD by the sounds of it but i'm pinning my hopes on the big sud event being here, please can all those with cars attend. i'm really hopeful of a great turnout

http://classicalfaforum.co.uk/forum/vie ... f=36&t=713

It came with a full 6 months warranty!

How times have changed.

I must have missed something, where is the big Sud meet taking place?

dralf1965 wrote:I must have missed something, where is the big Sud meet taking place?

here mate

http://classicalfaforum.co.uk/forum/vie ... f=36&t=713

venue/date yet to be confirmed but we need all suds to attend please

spread the word

Congratulations on the purchase and another Sud leaves Aust! Henleys were a long time Alfa dealer in Melbourne and a mate worked there for a few years in the 1980's. Think there were only a few Alfa dealers in the 1970's in Melbourne - Beninca's, Talbots & Henleys (my Sud was sold new by Talbots).

I have often thought that we need to merge an Aust Sud for body with a UK spec Sud for vinyls, plastics & material - best of both worlds Sud's do last 'down under' if garaged but can't believe is navy blue. Beninca's recently had an elderly client give them a low KM'S one owner S3 Ti and is navy blue and immaculate.

Enjoy the car!

Regards
Paul

Thanks to TFP for the background information relating to IVP 896.
Very interesting to know some more of the history of Alfa Romeo in the Melbourne area in the 70's and 80's. I did some Googling the other day and found a bit of chatter on the Alfa Romeo Club of Victoria forum about the history of some of the well known Alfa dealers during this period. Henly's was mentioned for having an unusually knowledgeable parts man at that time and also that it had unfortunately gone bankrupt in 1990. So it seems that the dealership is no more.

I concur with your thinking regarding the combination of Northern European interiors and Australian body shells. The examples you sometimes find in Southern Europe and Australia are often better in terms of being less corrosion damaged but so often have sun damaged interiors. The few Northern European cars one comes across can have better seats, door cards and dash, so long as water has not got in throught the windscreen surround due to rusting out around the drain holes, but often they need extensive and very expensive sheet metal work repairs to get them back on the road. I have read quite a few forum posts on the various Alfa enthusiast sites where the author has gone to much time, trouble and expense to achieve a nice restoration only to find the damaged interior parts, particularly the door cards cannot be replaced, leaving them with an unfinished project. A frustrating situation to be left with I am sure. Restorers of cars like the Escorts and Minis are so much better served by suppliers of reproduction interior parts and can usually find an acceptable solution when looking to restore a damaged interior. I was very aware of this conundrum whilst searching for a good Ti series 1 and passed on several cars that I felt would be very difficult to completely restore due to the poor condition of their interiors.

I am pleased to see you got her in the end, she looks fab
Those SI Ti steel wheels look great don't they, who needs alloys when the original steels look this good....

Yes Adi - very pleased to receive her in one piece after a long voyage from OZ. Container seems to have come from Sydney via Singapore and changed ships there. So far only found some slight damage to the front spoilers from the shipping container tie down ropes. They were already slightly damaged from grounding when I purchased the car and I have some good used spoiler sections to replace them with, so not too worried.

Big thanks once again for your invaluable help with the import process, you saved me a bundle!

Looking forward to getting to grips with sorting all the little problems and imperfections I have found on the car. After all "fettling" as Sudboy aptly called it in his recent post on this Forum is central to the fun of owning a classic car.