For Alfa Romeo, the 6C 2500 was the swansong of its era. When it debuted in 1939 as the third series of Vittorio Jano’s legendary inline six-cylinder Alfas, the engineers involved could never have imagined that it would signal the end of the line for hand-built Alfa Romeos. Thanks to engine upgrades and a vastly improved fuel delivery system, the 6C 2500 was the first road going Alfa Romeo capable of 160 km/h. Additionally, it benefited from four-wheel independent suspension, with parallel trailing arms and coil springs in the front and swing axles with torsion bars at the rear. Alfa Romeo continued its tradition of offering several levels of tuning, starting with the 87-horsepower Turismo, moving up to the 110-horsepower Super Sport, or SS, and culminating in the track-ready Tipo 256 with 120 horsepower. The 6C 2500 was immediately met with praise and success from its hand-selected upscale clientele. Alfa Romeo was, of course, still in the business of providing rolling chassis to custom coachbuilders, even as the onset of war loomed. The first project created after war’s end was the factory-offered 6C 2500 Freccia d’Oro, which had essentially the same running gear as the pre-war 6C 2500s. In the post-war years the demand for bespoke coachworks was very high and probably more than fifteen Italian coachbuilders built special bodies to clothe the important Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 chassis; of course, Carrozzeria Touring was one of them.

Three years later, in 1949, Alfa Romeo introduced the Villa d’Este Berlinetta Coupés with Superleggera coachwork by Touring, of Milan. Alfa Romeo chose the name Villa d’Este after this design won the Concours d’Elegance, which was held at the historic resort on Lake Como in northern Italy. The Touring-bodied 1949 6C 2500 Super Sport that enthralled the crowds in 1949 won the Gran Premio Referendum, also known as the People’s Choice Award. Between 1949 and 1952, a mere thirty-one Villa d’Este Coupés were produced, not including an additional five cabriolets. The 6C 2500’s production ended in 1952 (a couple of racing examples were produced in 1953), representing the end of hand-built Alfa Romeos.

The Alfa Romeo presented here is one of the last 6C 2500 Super Sport chassis produced in 1949. Chassis number 915882 was manufactured on 9 November 1949 and delivered to Carrozzeria Touring with a 110-horsepower SS variant of the glorious six-cylinder, 2,443-cubic centimetre powerplant. Touring’s craftsmen spent the better part of December, January, and early February fitting the unique bodywork to the chassis before completing the project on 11 February 1950. As a coachbuilt model, each Villa d’Este built was considered to be a piece of rolling art, and no two examples produced were precisely identical. With a bumperless front end and false bumper slots, this particular Villa d’Este has a unique appearance. The front wings feature prominent Marchal lights and supplemental inboard Marchal Le Mans driving lamps. The resulting shape has been artfully constructed and is all at once smooth, harmonious, and downright sporty. After being presented to the public as a show car, this Alfa Romeo was sold to its first private owner and then offered for sale in the late 1950s in New York. In July 1973, the car was acquired by J. Bertis Terrell, who sold it to David K. Whalley, of Massachusetts. In 1979, Whalley sold the car to Homer Tsakis, a prominent pre- and post-war Alfa Romeo collector from New York who partially restored the car and maintained it in his private collection. In 1989, ill health forced the owner to sell most of his collection, including this car. West Coast restoration specialists Tony Niccosia and John Masuda handled the sale, and the car passed to the Fromo Corporation of Japan, in whose capable hands it received a full nut-and-bolt restoration in the early 1990s. Upon completion, Japanese baseball star and automobile collector Masayuki Kakefu purchased the Alfa and retained it until 2007. It was then acquired by Dutch racing legend Toine Hezemans, who enjoyed exercising the car and even took it on tour on the California Mille in 2008, Mille Miglia and Villa d'Este Style in 2012.