Number 5: The Alfa Romeo Duetto and the Shape That Ended the Argument
The Alfa Romeo Spider Series 1 — universally known as the Duetto, though Alfa Romeo used that name only briefly before a trademark dispute ended it — was Pininfarina’s last personal design project before Battista Pininfarina’s death in 1966, and the body he signed off on is one of the few in automotive history that can be described as definitive without overstatement. The round boat tail, the low beltline, the long hood, the simple windscreen — these were not design choices that admitted of alternatives. Rally number 5, a red example photographed on the same Sicilian corner that has already hosted a Giulietta Spider, a Fiat 124, and a Beauford replica, is the car that makes all of those other open two-seaters look like they were working toward something.
The Duetto was produced between 1966 and 1969 in relatively small numbers before Alfa Romeo moved to the Kamm-tail Series 2 body. The round tail was expensive to manufacture and offered less luggage space than the squared-off alternative, two practical considerations that ended what was aesthetically an irreplaceable shape. The car became famous almost immediately upon release — Dustin Hoffman drove a white example in The Graduate the following year, 1967, and the image of the Duetto on the California coast became one of the more durable pieces of automotive iconography the cinema has produced. That association has followed the car ever since, which is either a burden or a gift depending on how the owner relates to it.
The red paint on number 5 is correct in the way that a specific color can be correct for a specific car. The Duetto in red is not a cliché; it is the car as intended, in the color that the body’s curves respond to best. The simple steel wheels with chrome hubcaps are unmodified, which is the right decision. This is not a car that benefits from period-incorrect alloys or suspension upgrades or any of the other improvements that owners of Italian classics sometimes apply in the belief that they are enhancing something. The Duetto is complete as it left the factory in 1966, 1967, 1968, or 1969. Number 5 appears to understand this.
Pininfarina resolved the Italian open sports car question in 1966. Everything photographed at this rally is, in one way or another, a response to that resolution.