Mussolini's Alfa Romeo Up for Grabs

It is difficult for me to write anything positive about the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, who allied with Hitler in the lead-up to WW2. Nevertheless when a car Il Duce once owned is offered for auction I'm obliged to pay attention. Actually, Autoblog was the source for this article, based on an item in Italiaspeed. The car is an Alfa Romeo 6C 2300 Pescara Spyder, ordered in 1935 with custom coachwork by Carrozzeria Touring. Included was an auxiliary jump-seat and an engine tuned to 95 horsepower, up from the standard 68 hp. Ah, though Benito may have been a car fancier he didn't drive! That job went to Ercole Boratto, a former Alfa Romeo factory test driver. In 1936 Boratto took the car to the famous Mille Miglia street race where he and the dictator's Alfa finished third in class. Mussolini's sports car will be auctioned by H&H at England's Cheltenham race course on February 27, 2008. It is expected to fetch between six-and-eight-hundred-thousand pounds sterling (approximately one and a half million dollars). Regardless of how nasty a prior owner may have been, provenance certainly (absurdly?) adds to the price. Posted by: Philip Powell    Source