Of course there was the Gold Plated Cadillac (and Jaguar) but imagine finding this gold plated Alfa 6C2300 Pescara!
As Found Classic Number Nineteen
Dear Pete,
One of my favorite photos to share…my 1934 Alfa Romeo 6C2300 Pescara, S/N 700.610. It was your copy of “High Performance Italian Cars” that I had the good fortune to buy from you, which in turn led me to become a premium subscriber to VeloceToday!
Sincerely,
Robert Piltch
Robert Piltch with his fantastic Rometsch-bodied Alfa Pescara.
Piltch’s car is not your standard 6C2300, for as one might discern from the golden grille and fashionable body sculpture, this is a very rare body by the German firm of Rometsch from about 1951. The body was constructed on a 1934 Pescara chassis so one might assume that this is a re-body.
Could this really be the same car? The Rometsch at a car show in 1951. From the book “German Automobile Coachwork” by Claus Benter and Halwart Schrader.
Rometsch was founded in 1924, the main business was quality taxicab conversions. But they also built bodies on a variety of chassis for their customers. During the war they produced mobile field kitchens, and after the war began to build car bodies again, the most successful being the Volkswagen based cars and taxis.
A photo of the car as sold in the 1960s confirms the grille arrangement of the Piltch Alfa and the chrome strips of the Rometsch show car above. The photo was published by Dave Brownell in Issue #142 “Special Interest Autos”, August 1994 and was taken by Bill Schwartzberg between 1958 and 1960 on Long Island. Bill wrote an article published in that issue entitled, “Back Lot Bargains”.
There is not much information about Rometsch or even the Alfa 2300s, even though Fusi lists 1606 6C 2300s built from 1934 to 1939. A few years ago chassis number expert John de Boer had a good look at Piltch’s find and confirmed the serial number. It also seemed that the car was very likely the mysterious Rometsch-bodied Alfa as can be seen from the photos. “It was Peter Marshall who first suggested to have a look at the swoopy image in the Benter & Schrader book. The coachbuilder was unknown up until 2007! Halwart did speculate how the car might have gotten to Berlin to be outfitted in Rometsch coachwork and how the journey to America may have been achieved,” said Piltch. “Curiously, not much light has been shed on the history of 700.610 nor of the exquisite Rometsch alloy cabriolet coachwork; some of the myriad unknowns yet to be illuminated: what was the original coachwork, who ordered the car from the works at Portello, did the car race, who were the past stewards of the car, and how and when did the car leave Milan and begin this fascinating odyssey!”
“Huge thanks to John de Boer for his keen interest, and in addition to his S/N confirmation, for locating these two ads: In 1953-1954, Alfa and Bugatti collector and racer of note, Dr. Sam Scher of Mamaroneck, NY offered the car for sale in an advertisement in an SCCA magazine.
“And the other ad, in what was most probably a New York Times advertisement in 1968-1969, noted Alfa collector, Arthur Jacobs, offered the car for sale. Arthur was the person who sold me the car in November 1969!”
The history and provenance, however, remains elusive. If readers can help just drop us a line at vack@cox.net.