Sir,

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Sir, May I add a little more information about the Monoposto Alfa Romeo No. 5006, so beautifully illustrated by Tony Matthews in the March isue of MOTOR SPORT. While researching my book on Alfa Romeo I had correspondence with Anthony PowysLybbe about the car in question and he told me he bought it from Mrs. Jill Thomas in 1949. It had been stored throughout the war by Thomson and Taylor on a farm in Sussex. [Quite right. I recall going to see it with D.S.J. in about 1942 and it was in company with the Napier Railton, the Harker Special, Reggie Tongue’s 4C Maserati and other cars.—Ed.j

Mrs. Thomas had raced it at Brooklands in 1938 with little success chiefly on account of trouble with water jacket cracks. The blocks went backwards and forwards to Milan and finished up with some beautiful boilermakers patches. Powys-Lybbe went on to say that the 2.9 Alfa Romeo was not suited to small circuits and the three-speed gearbox had to be used slowly and deliberately, like a bus-driver. It was not strong enough for -straight-through racing changes”. He never saw a 2.9 with four speeds, though they all had the four-speed gear gate, with 2nd gear slot blanked off, so that low and middle were forward and top was back. Inside the box the sliding 1st gear no longer had to come forward, leaving more room for the sliding top and third clusters, therefore having broader teeth all round.

All Alfa Romeo enthusiasts must have felt they were getting more than their money’s worth in the March issue of MOTOR SPORT, with that fine full-page colour photograph on No. 5006 as well as the centrespread cut-awaY. Newbury P. M. A. HULL PS.—There was surely a typographical error in the story accompanying the drawing, where it referred to cars of C. E. C. Martin and Louis Fontes, saying the former never raced his. It was Fontes who never raced Isis car, not Martin. jCorrect—D.S.J.j