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1949 Alfa Romeo 6C 2300 Plate Special

Roadster
Chassis number: P-002
Engine number: 700174

Luigi Plate was born in the mid-1890s and actively raced automobiles during the 1920s and 1930s. Luigi Plate and his younger cousin, Enrico Plate, were automotive enthusiasts who had a racing team called Scuderia Plate. The team ran a variety of cars in various races. Many of the vehicles used in competition were highly modified by Milanese tuners.

In the mid-1940s, Luigi raced an Alfa Romeo 2300, which may have served as the donor for what would later become the Plate Special Roadster. The Plate Special was built in 1949 and had a tubular chassis and powered by an Alfa Romeo 6C 2300 engine that dated from 1934.

The car was raced in Italy and then sold to an Italian-American individual from New York in 1959. It was later damaged in a fire.

The car has recently been treated to a restoration. Upon completion, the car made its restoration debut at the 2011 Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance.

by Dan Vaughan

Luigi 'Gigi' Platé was born on September 3, 1894 in Mennagio on Lake Como. He had a passion for racing which led to a friendship with Tazio Nuvolari. He was a motorcycle racer, owned a motorsports garage, and later was involved with automobile racing. Platé entered his first auto race, the 1922 race at the Circuito Sardo in Cagliari - Sardegna, piloting an Ansaldo 4CS to victory in his class and a 2nd place finish overall. It is estimated that Plate participated in no fewer than 400 competitive events. In the 1920s, Platé piloted various vehicles, including an Ansaldo, Ceirano, FIAT, and a Chiribiri. His most notable finishes were class wins in the 1925 running of the Circuito di Savio, the Targa Florio, Circuito dei Monti Peloritani, and the Circuito di Tripoli, in 1926 Circuito del Garda and the Circuito di Tripoli, as well as the 1934 running of the Parma-Poggio di Berceto.

This particular vehicle is called the 'Alfa Romeo' 6C Plate Special. It was built in the late 1940s, between 1948 and 1949. It is powered by a 1934 Alfa Rome 6C 2300 GT engine, which was given 3 Sidedraft Weber carburetors. The chassis was made to Plates design. The suspension is a semi-independent torsion bar setup, with a modified front axle and rear differential sourced from a 1934 Alfa Rome 6C 2300. The chassis utilized the patented Plate 360-degree brake shoe design in hydraulic form. Oil flows through the chassis tubes using a dry sump system with an oil reservoir in the rear.

A certificate of origin for this car, chassis P-002, was issued on September 16th, 1948. Six6 months later, on March 28th, 1949, the sale of P-002 to Luigi Plate was recorded, and nearly seven months more had passed before P-002 was issued its first registration certificate with the Milan plate number MI136938.

On July 22, 1951, P-002 was entered as number 58 in the Susa-Moncenisio race, driven by Paolo Soprani, where it DNF'ed. On June 6, 1959, P-002 was sold to Nicholas Piccione of Brooklyn, NY. Piccione was issued insurance on June 18, 1959, at a cost of 34,000 Lire. Mr. Piccione enjoyed the car for a few months in Italy before shipping it to Brooklyn.

On May 7, 1984, Mr. John Murphy purchased the racing special from 'Wheels of Time' in Florida, who had acquired it from an estate sale in Atlanta, Georgia. In November of 1990, a restoration began, taking over two decades of research and work to complete.

In 2004, P-002 was awarded 1st in class at the La Jolla Concours. In 2011 was shown at the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance. In 2015 it was shown at the Amelia Island Concours and completed the Eight Flags Road Tour.

There is still speculation that this may be a lost Alfa 'Corse' or ' Ala Spessa' from the prewar era, bodied with a new look post-war by Plate.'

by Dan Vaughan