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- Tsukishima-TDUDT
Collectors call the Alfa Romeo 6C 2300 Aerodinamica Spider the “Croatian Alfa”.
In the mid-1930s – as the car manufacturer faced the challenges posed by strong international competitors such as the German Auto Union and Daimler-Benz – an Italian designer of Hungarian descent working for Alfa Romeo, Vittorio Jano (1981-1965), had a brilliant intuition.
He involved Gino and Oscar Jankovits – the sons of an Alfa Romeo dealer in Fiume – in an ambitious new design. Now known as Rijeka, and part of Croatia, Fiume was annexed to Italy at the time.
Between 1934 and 1940, working in their garage and body shop, “Lampo”, the two brothers brought to life Wilfredo Ricart’s sketches and created a truly wonderful vehicle. Jano provided Jankovits with Alfa Romeo parts and his expertise. Jankovits built, tested, and developed the vehicle in Fiume. Chassis number 700315, a 6C 2300 chassis, was shipped to Fiume. The engine bay was large enough to house a V12, but instead was given a six-cylinder engine modified with triple Weber 36 D04 carburetors.
Development of the car continued over several years, until Jano was fired from Alfa in 1937, just prior to the car being finished. This meant that an chance to fit a new V12 vanished. The Jankovits kept the Aerospider and had it registered for street use. The car still wears the original Fiume license plates.
To make the car more suitable to road use, the car was given a large windscreen, bumpers and turn signals. In 1946 Jankovits used the aerodynamic racer to break through the communistic border from Yugoslavia to Italy. They were free but short on money, so they sold their prototype to an Anglo-American soldier.
This Alfa Romeo was rediscovered in England in 1967. It went back to Italy in 2002 and in 2008, the car was restored to its original purpose of a high-speed racer.
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