The story of AR 10120*00388*: 

     One of the original 100 SS’s produced especially for the American Market; #388 was first sold in Portland by Rambo Motors. Born in 501 Red the car had received 4 different color paint jobs by the time I purchased the car in 1982. Its history from 1962 through 1982 is mostly unknown. How I came to find and buy the car is an interesting side story. In late May of 1982 I had just come home from school when my phone rang. It was my friend Kevin Williams who was at a Repossession Yard in Salem looking at a pick-up. "There's a couple of Alfas on the lot here and one of them looks funny." After getting quick directions I blasted up to Salem just before the yard closed. Funny is right; it was an SS -- the second real one I had ever seen. It was missing some parts and had a 1600 normale motor under the hood but it was an honest to god SS. 

     After being rung in through an endless labyrinth of bulletproof doors, I got to talk to the office manager of the lot. "How do I do this?” I asked. "You have to make an offer that the bank will accept, then the owner has 14 days to match your offer. If they don't the car is yours." "Is there a current offer?" "$800, but the bank needs more." " I'll offer $1500." "I'll call the bank." A few minutes later she told me that the bank would accept $1500.  I only had to write a check and wait two weeks. There was a small problem with that plan: Marian and I were leaving for our first trip to Europe a week before the deal was final. 

     I arranged to have my friend Jay Conrad pick up the car and gave him the paperwork. If I actually got the SS he would pick it up and stash it in my shop until I returned home on July 4th. When I got home I almost didn't have guts enough to open the shop to see if it was there. It was. The SS was quite a present for me on my 35th birthday. Later, while searching through the car, I came across registration slips that led me to the owner who had let the car be repossessed. Using all the tact I could muster, I called him and inquired about the original engine and some of the other missing parts. He said he had most of them and yes he would sell them for $400. It turned out he and his wife had had a premature baby and medical bills were eating them alive.

     I owned #388 until 2003. The ensuing years after purchase had been spent gathering parts. I actually bought another SS in Idaho for the grille work and other bits of unobtanium.  The second SS was sold when I moved to Jefferson. I scored the last NOS SS nose in the world on a trip to Alfa Ricambi in 1988. In 2003 I sold the car to James and Cindy Dyer of Houston Texas. They commissioned me to restore the car to top Concours standard. They chose to change the color to Holland Blue and picked the contrasting red and grey leather for the interior. The SS was completed two days before delivery at Concorso Italiano in 2005. At the meet it received the award for best Alfa Romeo. The Dyers took the car home to Houston and mostly didn't drive it. They sold it to Don Schwarzkopf in August of 2008. The car moved to Don's home in New Jersey. After a good detailing and some fuel system fettling Don and the SS won the Alfa Romeo Class and Best of Show at the 2009 Hemmings Sports and Exotic Car show in Saratoga Springs, New York, and Best Alfa Romeo at the 2010 Radner Hunt Concours d' Elegance in Pennsylvania. 

A number of AROO members participated in the Restoration of #388: Marian and Don Gillham, Dan Sommers, Jim Trofitter, Al Rimer, John Veliotes, Dave Rugh, Les Hurlock and Jay Conrad are among them.

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Off to a new home: Number 388 is now in the Malamute Automobile Museum located in Newbury Park/Calabasas, California. The old SS has made quite a journey from that Repo yard in Salem, Oregon.