Alfa Romeo 1900 Companion

Brake Scoops/Ducts...

When I inspected *01839* (Boano coupe, not Primavera), I was surprised to find these air scoops/ducts on the car's front brakes. Not being an expert at all on the details of Alfa 1900 mechanicals, I emailed Joost and Peter about them. Their replies boil down to this (and perhaps you know this already): On Tipo 3, Tipo 4, TI and TI Supers, these ducts were standard issue. The ducts may also have been standard on bare chassis shipped to specialty coachbuilders...but that doesn't necessarily mean that those coachbuilders retained them. The jury's still out on this aspect of the scoops question.

If your Tipo 3, TI or TI Super doesn't have these ducts, you may want to have them fabricated. Ask Joost or Peter about patterns they may have for such reconstructions. And Paolo Galafassi in Rolo, Italy, offers recreations on his website. A correct replica brake scoop should feature a "twisted" front screened face, as shown in this illustration.

Driver-side scoop/duct, above, and off-side, below. (*01839* is LHD)

Scoops on the Disco Volante C52 Coupe, above, and C52 Fianchi-Stretti spider, below, demonstrate the competion-derived nature of these brake scoops.
Note the "twist" of the front face, from top to bottom, of each scoop.
This is normal and correct, and reproductions should include this twist.

Above, two views of the internal ducting of the scoops, as on *01839*.

Above, you can see how the intact off-side scoop is spot-welded to the drum backing plate. The spot welds start at the tail of the scoop and continue all along the line where the scoop touches the backing plate.

Above, the driver-side scoop apparently sheared off at some point in its history, and was crudely tack-welded back in an approximation of the correct position and angle. Arrow points to the sloppy welds, shown closer-up on the right.

Above, *01607*, a Tipo 2 Sprint coupe (Series I), has smooth backing plates,
(viewed from behind) which would be correct for a Series I Touring Sprint coupe.
Scoops were introduced later on the Series II Super Sprint coupe.

Tipo 4 *10542*, above, has original, twisted brake scoops.

The scoops on Tipo3 *02072* are original to the car and the proper "twist"
can be readily seen in this view from the front of the chassis.
Reproduction brake scoops often lack this twist.

This is *10145*, a Tipo 4 or Series III Super Sprint coupe. It has a line of broken spot welds on each drum backing plate, indicating that it once had the brake scoops.