Testing the ice with the original Alfa Giulietta Spider prototype

Once left to decay in a barn, this beautiful Franco Scaglione–designed Giulietta Spider prototype was rediscovered by Corrado Lopresto and restored to its former glory. We caught the golden Giulietta on its way to St. Moritz.

It's a crisp winter day in the Engadin valley. Thick layers of snow blanket forests, peaks, and villages under a pale white sky. Only the serpentines of the Maloja pass is winding its way up the mountain like a black snake in the snow. The silence is broken by the slowly swelling roar of an engine, then we glimpse a small golden sports car between the fir trees, driving through the curves towards the mountain pass. Wearing a fur hat and thick winter jacket against the cold, the driver is steering the car along Lake Sils Maria and Lake Silvaplana, both frozen and covered in snow. He stops the car, walks towards the lakeshore to test the thickness of the ice. Will it be strong enough to carry him and his trusted Spider? Breathing plumes of fog into the crisp mountain air, he starts the engine again, ready for his first drive on the ice — a barchetta on the lake.

But before we join the daring driver on his drift across the frozen lake, let's take two steps back to learn a bit more about the car: In the mid-1950s, Alfa Romeo was enjoying great success with the Giulietta. Max Hoffman, the influential US car importer, soon requested an open-top version of the Giulietta Sprint for the American market. Alfa Romeo agreed, and to ensure the design was worthy, it staged a competition between Pininfarina and Bertone. History tells us the outcome: Pininfarina’s proposal became the production Giulietta Spider, while Bertone’s rejected designs would nonetheless go on to influence many Alfa Romeo open sports cars for decades to come.

Where Pininfarina’s design was relatively formal, with its round headlights, Bertone’s two Franco Scaglione–penned prototypes were far more radical: The first, finished in red, featured narrower headlights and rear fins without integrated tail-lights. Yet it is arguably this two-tone gold-and-white car from 1955 that truly steals the show. Influenced by contemporary American styling and the BAT concept cars, both prototypes were deemed too futuristic and costly to produce. “They judged the car wouldn’t be commercially successful; it was just too expensive,” explains Duccio Lopresto, car specialist at RM Sotheby's and son of the renowned Italian car collector Corrado Lopresto. As a result, the cars were separated: the red prototype went to Switzerland, while this example, chassis 0004, was sold to Hoffman but remained in Italy.

By the 1990s, a young Corrado Lopresto heard of a rare Alfa languishing in an entrepreneur’s collection. The car was barely recognisable, having been repainted red and retrimmed inside, but Corrado immediately sensed it was something special. “My father saw the lines and knew it was important,” recalls Duccio. “He bought it for almost nothing.” Its condition firmly placed it in barn-find territory. Research soon revealed traces of gold beneath the paint, and period photographs from 1958 confirmed the original colour scheme. During restoration, the original cream-and-red seats were discovered beneath layers of later upholstery. While the paintwork had to be redone, an impressive 80% of the aluminium body was retained.

When the car was completed in the early 2000s, scepticism surrounded both the restoration and the very existence of a second Bertone prototype. Corrado’s meticulous documentation eventually silenced the doubters, and the story came full circle when the car was reunited with the first owner’s widow decades later.

Today, the prototype remains a centrepiece of the Lopresto Collection. Light, aerodynamically honed and powered by an 80hp 1.3-litre four-cylinder engine, it offers a more engaging drive than a standard Giulietta. “It feels amazing — extremely light,” says Duccio. Looking at it now, it’s hard to believe such a design was ever rejected, a sentiment echoed by the later Duetto Spiders that followed in its wake.

What could be a better car to get us in the mood for this week's The I.C.E. St. Moritz than this remarkable Giulietta Spider prototype — a true Italian barchetta, a little boat created by Bertone to be dancing on a frozen lake.