Monza Alfa Romeo follow-up

Following the article in the December 1976 Motor Sport about the Monza Alfa Romeo of A. P. Hamilton, the present owner has sent a photograph of the completed chassis frame and bulkhead, now finished Alfa red, during the course of the rebuild. From “TASO” Mathieson, in Paris, comes the information that Raymond Sommer did indeed win a Grand Prix of France with the car. Ito-soot the short 3.3-kilometre Montl-hery road-cum-track circuit on September 17th, 1933 and was, in effect, a French club meeting. There were three events, the first for 750 c.c. supercharged and 1,100 c.c. unsupercharged, the second for 1,100 c.c. supercharged and 1,500 c.c. unsupercharged and the third for cars of any capacity. It was this last race, over 79.9 kilometres, that Sommer won with the Monza Alfa Romeo, beating six Bugattis driven by amateurs. These Montlhery club races were given the grandiose title of the Grand Prix of France, not to be confused with the French Grand Prix or Grand Prix of the Automobile Club of France. As they were national club races they did not appear in any International results lists of the time, which explains why I could not find any reference to the victory.

From Christopher Mann, who races a Monza Alfa Romeo in VSCC events, comes an enquiry whether anyone can trace the history of his car in its Scuderia Ferrari days. His car is SF32/2211115 which was raced in England pre-war by Austin Dobson, and is known to have come from Ferrari and to have run in the 1934 Mille Miglia, driven either by Achille Varzi, or Louis Chiron.

In the final column of the Alfa Romeo article, paragraph two, it says “In 1931 A. P. Hamilton….” which of course should have said “In 1935 ” Production problems 1976!—D.S.J.