Unequivocally the finest sports car built prior to WWII, the incomparable 8C 2900 represents the culmination of a decade’s worth of development under the visionary leadership of Alfa Romeo’s chief engineer Vittorio Jano.

Beginning with the P2 Grand Prix of 1925, Jano’s brilliant designs placed Alfa Romeo on the path to motor sports glory. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the company’s supercharged, twin-cam sports cars and single-seat monopostos dominated the competition, resulting in numerous Grand Prix wins and victories at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the Mille Miglia, and the Targa Florio.

As the successor to the legendary 8C 2300, the sports car counterpart to the Tipo B Monoposto, or P3, the 8C 2900 was to serve as Alfa Romeo’s road-going companion to the Tipo C, also known as the 8C-35, which Jano designed to compete against the latest generation of Grand Prix machines from Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union.

In all respects, the 8C 2900 chassis was a technological tour de force – a cutting-edge design in the 1930s that would still be considered advanced by postwar standards.

At the heart of the machine was a magnificent 2.9-liter straight-eight engine, built to Alfa Romeo’s well-established formula: light alloy construction, gear-driven twin overhead camshafts, hemispherical combustion chambers, and main bearings placed between each cylinder. Unlike the earlier 2.3, the 2.9’s head and block were cast in unit – testa fissa (fixed head) in Alfa Romeo parlance – with ignition provided by a Scintilla magneto instead of a distributor. Equipped with twin Roots-type superchargers, each fed by its own Weber carburetor, the 8C 2900 produced between 180 and 225 hp depending on its state of tune.

This state-of-the art powerplant was installed in a chassis that featured a rearmounted four-speed transaxle, massive hydraulic brakes with finned-alloy drums, and fully independent suspension, using Dubonnet-type trailing arms up front and a swing-axle arrangement at the rear.

Although several coachbuilders crafted bodies for the 2.9, Anderloni’s Carrozzeria Touring of Milan was the coachbuilder of choice for Alfa Romeo’s masterpiece. The bodies Touring created for these cars are regarded as the apogee of the coachbuilder’s art, characterized by their technical innovation, aesthetic brilliance, and uncompromising build quality. Constructed using the coachbuilder’s patented Superleggera (Superlight) method, the Berlinetta and Spider bodies that Touring produced for the 2.9 were ideally proportioned, flawlessly detailed, and rendered in the most sublime, streamlined style.

By any measure, the 8C 2900 was the ultimate high-performance sports car of its day – a Grand Prix-derived Italian thoroughbred dressed in impeccably tailored custom coachwork. In road-going form, no other car offered its combination of performance and panache, and in racing trim, the 2.9 was simply in a league of its own. Competition versions of the 8C 2900 were victorious in the last three prewar editions of the Mille Miglia and won the 24 Hours of Spa in 1936 and 1938.

Even after WWII, the 2.9 was still the car to beat. In 1947, a 2.9 Berlinetta won the first postwar running of the Mille Miglia. Meanwhile, in the US, Frank Griswold’s Berlinetta won the inaugural Watkins Glen Road Race in 1948 and, in 1951, Phil Hill drove his Mille Miglia Spider to victory at the Pebble Beach Road Races.

Exceptional in their day, these Alfa Romeos have always appealed to connoisseurs. The roster of former and current 2.9 owners is a veritable who’s who of car collecting, with several collectors owning more than one example of the model. Despite their revered reputation, approximately 40 examples of the 2.9 were built between 1935 and 1939, including all road and racing variants. Of these, just five long-chassis 2900B Touring Spiders survive today in some semblance of their original form – including the remarkable car presented here.

As noted in Simon Moore’s definitive book, The Immortal 2.9, this 1938 Alfa Romeo 8C 2900B Lungo, chassis 412027, was originally fitted with engine no. 422036 and Touring Spider coachwork, body no. 2023.

While the earliest history of 412027 remains a mystery, it is understood to have been exported to Egypt by the early 1940s, if not when new. Its bodywork was originally distinguished by additional bonnet louvres and large grilles on either side of the radiator – features that would have improved cooling in a hot climate – leading some to theorize that the Alfa Romeo was originally owned by a European diplomat who planned to use the car in North Africa.

The first known owner of 412027 was Major Raymond Flower, proprietor of the Cairo Motor Company. In his correspondence with Simon Moore, Mr. Flower fondly recalled his 2.9 Alfa Romeo, but was unable to definitively recall who he had purchased the car from, as his company’s records were lost during the Suez Crisis of 1956.

“The 2.9 was a magnificent machine probably the most exciting of all the 100 or more cars I’ve personally owned.” Mr. Flower reported. “I personally owned the 2.9 from January 1945 to October 1945. The car was painted silver-blue with bright red leather upholstery…the performance was staggering, and I once drove it from Cairo to Alexandria (137 miles) down the desert road in a little over an hour and a half. But of course, it was not suitable for Egyptian roads and (was) absolute murder in Cairo traffic with the blowers permanently engaged. (‘Noisy brute’ said my father from behind the wheel of his Bentley).”

The 2.9’s next owner, Zurich-based Swissair pilot Hans Ernst, imported it into Switzerland in June 1948. He entered the Alfa Romeo in the St. Ursanne-Les Rangiers Hill Climb and kept it until 1953, when it was sold to Bern resident Dr. Max Mühlethaler. Around 1955, the Alfa Romeo was sold to the US via Walter Schweitzer, together with an accompanying cache of original 8C 2900B components, including a spare engine crankcase (no. 422031) that had been removed from chassis 412029, a Touring Berlinetta.

In his book, Mr. Moore notes that 412027’s next owner was an American named Jack Albert who apparently “woke up one morning after an incredibly wild party with the registration papers in his pocket!” Before long, ownership had passed to Jack Brenner of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and from there the 2.9 was sold to the pioneering Chicago-based car collector Vojta Mashek.

During his ownership, Mr. Mashek used the spare crankcase, no. 422031, as the basis for a complete engine rebuild, carried out by Wilhelm “Bill” Spoerle, the long-serving head of restorations at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum’s Hall of Fame. He then sold the car’s original crankcase, no. 422036, together with a collection of remaining spares, to Paul Schreiber. Failing health eventually forced Mr. Mashek to sell his partially restored 2.9 Spider – together with some 40 other classics – to Walter Weimer of Minneapolis, a collector who had previously owned a 2.9 Berlinetta and longed to own another.

Though the engine had been completely rebuilt under Mr. Mashek’s ownership, the 2.9 Spider was still largely disassembled. To ensure that he had all the components required to complete a restoration, Mr. Weimer loosely assembled the car and found it to be largely complete and generally well-preserved. He made limited progress on the project and sold it, about a decade later, to noted collector Ben Paul Moser of Santa Barbara, California. Around 1977, Mr. Moser came to the realization that he had too many restorations to manage and decided to sell the 2.9 “to someone who could make the car a primary project.”

The famed Philadelphia-based collector and neurosurgeon Dr. Fred Simeone acquired the 2.9 Spider from Mr. Moser and commissioned antique car specialist Fred Hoch to oversee the Alfa Romeo’s first comprehensive restoration. This process was completed in the early 1980s and the 8C was refinished in traditional Italian Racing Red with black leather upholstery. Dr. Simeone, a dedicated Alfista who owned and experienced virtually every 8C variant, provided his driving impressions of 412027 for the first edition of The Immortal 2.9: “It is an extremely low mileage car and we have had absolutely no trouble with it in any way. I love to drive it although the difference in chassis length is noticeable on cornering in comparison with the short chassis cars I have driven. The nicest thing about the car is its very low mileage and free from modifications.”

Only after acquiring two ex-Mille Miglia 2.9s, including the 1938 race winner, did Dr. Simeone part with 412027, selling it in 1994 to Lukas Hüni of Zurich, Switzerland. An Alfa Romeo connoisseur himself, Mr. Hüni commissioned 8C specialist Tony Merrick of Berkshire, England, to perform a complete restoration with “carte blanche to produce the best example.”

That restoration, responsible for the car’s outstanding appearance today, included a bare-metal repaint in an elegant, nonmetallic shade of dark blue, upholstery trimmed by the acclaimed specialist Brian Frost, and a complete mechanical rebuild. Following the restoration, the 2.9 was inspected and certified by Carlo Felice Bianchi Anderloni on behalf of the Touring Register. Upon its debut at the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este in 1996, chassis 412027 was deservedly selected as Best of Show.

In 1998, the 2.9 Spider joined Oscar Davis’ renowned New Jersey-based collection, which contained many of the finest Alfa Romeos, Bugattis, and Ferraris. During his long-term ownership, 412027 was awarded First in Class at the 2000 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance® and was selectively exhibited at premier concours venues. The 2.9 Spider remained a treasured centerpiece of Mr. Davis’s collection until his passing, whereupon his estate sold the Alfa Romeo to a prominent Florida-based collector.

In July 2022, while in transit to a restoration facility in Maine, the 2.9 Spider, together with the truck and trailer it was being transported on, were stolen from a hotel parking lot in South Carolina. The theft was immediately reported to the Dillon County Sheriff’s office, and the owner’s insurer AIG Property Casualty Company promptly paid the claim, becoming the current, titled owner of 412027.

In December 2023, after months working in collaboration with the Dillon County Sheriff’s office to support the investigation, AIG received notice from the ATF and FBI that the 2.9 had been located. Following the car’s discovery, it was then transported by law enforcement to the FBI’s secure storage facility in North Carolina. In recent months, 412027 has made the journey to California, where superficial cosmetic damage sustained during the theft was painstakingly repaired by the acclaimed restorer Mike Regalia in preparation for its debut at public auction.

With its advanced specification, exotic bloodline, and peerless aesthetic qualities, this 2.9 embodies the spirit and traditions of the Alfa Romeo marque. In breathtaking Touring Spider form, the 8C 2900B Lungo is a true mechanical objet d’art – an automobile of unrivaled elegance and sophistication that is as beautiful today as it was in 1938. It is, without question, a masterpiece of 20th century industrial design.

Even among this rare breed, this 2.9 is extraordinary. After spending its earliest years in Egypt and Switzerland, 412027 relocated to the US, where it was owned and admired by some of the most famous names in car collecting: Vojta Mashek, Ben Paul Moser, and Dr. Fred Simeone. Restored to the highest standards of the day by the highly regarded 8C expert Tony Merrick and debuted to universal acclaim at Villa d’Este, it later returned to the US, where it spent over two decades as a fixture in the esteemed Oscar Davis collection. Its history continues to take unexpected twists and turns, most notably its recent high-profile theft and recovery, and yet 412027 remains as desirable as ever – an outstanding example of what most knowledgeable enthusiasts regard among the finest, most important automobiles ever built.

This 2.9 Alfa Romeo already has a truly fantastic story to tell – and its new owner will have a unique opportunity to write its next exciting chapter.