During September 22-24, RM Sotheby’s will offer at auction some 1172 lots comprising the entire Gene Ponder collection of automobiles and automobilia. Gene Ponder, a Texas kitchen cabinet entrepreneur, has turned eighty and decided it’s time to start “taking life seriously“. Here at RM Sotheby’s, lot number 3151 is a 1952 Alfa Romeo 1900 “Disco Volante” Spider recreation. This car will be offered at no reserve, with an estimated price between $175,000 and $225,000. The auction will be held in Marshall, Texas. Thanks to Araknid78 for this exotic tip! Documents show that the work to create this car began in 2017 with the purchase of a Jaguar XK150 chassis. The chassis number of the Jaguar appears to have been assigned to the recreated car, so it is titled as a 1959 Jaguar. Power is supplied by a 3.4 liter, six-cylinder, double overhead camshaft XK140 motor, accompanied by three very non-British Weber 45 DCOE carburetors. The body was made of hand-formed aluminum by ADC Enterprises in Red Oak, Texas.
The effort to recreate one of the five Disco Volante cars made – the surviving four of which reside in museums – is obviously meticulous. The work cost something in the six figures, most of which was probably body and paint. The interior is festooned with Alfa gauges, a beautiful wood steering wheel, leather seats, and wool carpets.
The motor is Jaguar’s venerable six-cylinder, OHC 3.4 liter motor. When paired with a C-type head from a Jaguar XK120 and two SU carburetors, the horsepower was around 210. This motor does have the C-type head, but of course, the triple Webers changes the equation. The Weber treatment wasn’t unique to this car, of course. Around the same time as this car was a twinkle in its owner’s eye, the Heuber Roadster came to auction. Take a look at the Heuber’s engine bay and tell me it doesn’t look awfully familiar.
It’s difficult to gauge the value of a recreated car. For one thing, there are several flavors of “recreations” or “replicas”. There are factory-sponsored versions, one-offs, and production replicas like the Cobras from Factory Five. In this case, with the four individual versions of the Disco Volante already spoken for and unlikely to come up for sale, if you want one, you have to make it yourself. But this upcoming week, if you had your heart set on acquiring a Disco Volante look-alike, and you are not in love with the British/Italian amalgam of this car, you might want to step up to the plate on the OTHER 1952 Alfa Romeo 1900 C52 recreation – lot number 3187 – for sale at the same auction. This one runs an Alfa twin-cam 1600 cc motor, but it might set you back half again as much as the Jaguar version. I will be curious to see the final results on these two.
With all the work that went into this why didn’t he use an Alfa Romeo motor. The correct 4 cylinder is easily available and while the correct 6 is a little more difficult it least a 6 from something like a 106 2600.
It’s more British than Italian…that car has an identity problem…
A condom would have prevented this miss matched creation.
And people have the gall to say AMC or Chrysler had some wacky designs. All that’s missing is a cockpit bubble, and it could be a UFO. Kidding aside, I bet it’s downright exhilarating to drive, I can’t imagine anything more finicky than a Jag motor with Webers, much less THREE of them, upon mashing the throttle, once it stops burbling and coughing, I bet it really goes. I can just see some snowflake in their KIA, texting and POW,,,this belongs in a museum, and what good is that? I do think it’s really cool.
Strange! An “Alfa” on a Jag base.
I like the OHA Alfa more as it sits on a Alfa base. No critics
for this vehicle, but originality counts.
I’m shure if such cars like the OHA sold as self-to-finish kits
would sell like hotcakes. Not anybody is willed to pay a six
letter pricetag to own such a car.
This Alfa is so beautiful, it hurts, that is until discovering its mechanical underpinnings, then shock sets in. What on earth were they thinking, using an over the hill Jag drive line? They must have been smoking some strange stuff.
Sorry, not a recreation…just a custom bodied XK-150, albeit nicely done.
The pick’n’mix approach means this is very hard to sell.
Why go to so much trouble with the body and none at all with the running gear?
Looks like a nice car, someone is going to have some fun with it I personally don’t care for its styling
The webers are not all that hard to adjust.
Check the owner, he has a large collection of British and Italian cars, and made a fortune building home cabinets, so this gem must of made him happy.
This car sold for $143k and the other Alfa recreation sold for $385k.
$143,000 USD | Sold