By Hannah Elliott | Bloomberg
An 86-year-old Italian race car owned over the years by a string of dignitaries from Egypt to Switzerland to Florida—only to be stolen outside a Holiday Inn Express in the American South—will be for sale during Monterey Car Week in Carmel, California. On Aug. 16, Gooding & Co. will offer the 1938 Alfa Romeo 8C 2900 Lungo Spider filched in 2022 and recovered in 2023. The car has a presale estimate of $16 million to $20 million. If the 8C is anything like Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, Edvard Munch’s The Scream, or Pablo Picasso’s Femme Assise, the hijinks behind its triumphant return could make it even more alluring than expected. Each of those precious artworks has been lost and recovered in heists that only increased their mystique—and their value.
“I am not aware of any of these 8C 2900 Alfa Romeos having been stolen and recovered like that,” says Simon Moore, who wrote a book on the model, The Immortal 2.9. “It certainly adds something to the story about this particular car.” But will that storyline raise the price at the auction podium? It’ll have to buck the current classic car market, which has been softening for the past couple of years, to do so.
An Inadvertent Crime
The drama has undoubtedly enhanced the notoriety of the 8C model line, already well-known among the world’s wealthiest and most discerning collectors as a holy grail car. It’s so special because it is exceedingly rare; of an estimated 40 ever built, only five remain in their original form. It also has a proven track record of winning the world’s most prestigious concours events. Someone who buys one today typically does so in order to go for the top title at a hallowed event such as the Villa d’Este Concours d’Elegance and the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. In 2019, Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason’s former Alfa Romeo 8C won the Gran Turismo Trophy at Pebble Beach. (He had sold it years earlier to avoid prison for tax avoidance.)
“The 8C was one of the best cars made in the late twenties and early thirties,” Mason wrote about his 8C in an essay for Hagerty Inc. last year. “It was a remarkably sophisticated sports car, an early version of the [Ferrari 250] GTO, and really easy to drive; my dad’s Bentley in comparison is such a heavy thing but you can put both into fourth gear and go all day.”
Quite advanced for its era, the 8C also introduced technologies including a four-wheel independent suspension, massive hydraulic brakes with finned-aluminum drums, and a light alloy construction. It earned legendary status for winning the most harrowing and glorious car races of the 1930s, like the Mille Miglia for Enzo Ferrari’s Scuderia Ferrari and the 24 Hours of Spa. The 2900’s roaring 2.9-liter straight-eight engine with twin superchargers and overhead camshafts—another advanced technology for the time—produced up to 225 horsepower, gobs more than other cars at the time made by the likes of Ford, Fiat and even Mercedes-Benz.
“Prewar Alphas were so far ahead of everybody else—everybody else was like a Model T compared to that car—that’s why they won everything,” says Mike Regalia, who completed 500 hours of work on the vehicle after it was recovered. Regalia, who is based in Sun Valley, California, is a well-regarded restorer of Talbot-Lagos and other elite European models, as well as cars with serious provenance such as Steve McQueen’s 1963 Ferrari 250 GT/L Lusso Berlinetta and 1976 Porsche 930 Turbo.
When it was stolen on July 25, 2022, in Latta, South Carolina, this 8C (Chassis 412027) was on its way to a restoration shop in Maine. At the time it was owned by a prominent dentist and businessman named Richard Workman. The founder of Heartland Dental, Workman has owned many rare classics, including a 1961 Ferrari 400 Superamerica and 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO, which have won recognition for his collection out of Windermere, Florida. Workman had bought the car privately from the Oscar Davis collection in 2022. The 8C was being towed in a covered trailer by a 2002 Ford F-350 pickup when the transporter parked it overnight outside a Holiday Inn Express near
