“If only one car should survive until 3019, this should be it,” wrote the Italian author Marco Makaus on his Instagram account this weekend. He was, of course, referring to the Touring-bodied 1937 Alfa Romeo 8C 2900B from the collection of David Sydorick, which won not only the audience-voted Coppa d’Oro award but also the Trofeo BMW Group for the ‘Best of Show’. Similar to Ralph Lauren’s Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantic, which won both awards back in 2013, the beguilingly beautiful Alfa was truly in a league of its own. Furthermore, the car won ‘Best of Show’ at last year’s Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance and also claimed the ‘Best of the Best’ award at the Peninsula Classics in Paris back in February. No greater honour can be bestowed on this automotive treasure. 

The Alfa Romeo 2900B is a triumph of inter-War automotive manufacture, combining state-of-the-art technology with avant-garde design. It is therefore considered something of a national rolling shrine in Italy. Its lightweight aluminium eight-cylinder engine, with its twin superchargers, stunned Alfa Romeo’s contemporaries in the late 1930s, as well as the fact its breathtakingly elegant Superleggera body was built on the architecture of a victorious racing Monoposto.

The success-spoiled example from David Sydorick is one of five bodied by Touring and stunned crowds at both the Paris and Milan shows. The fact that 80 years later, the Alfa Romeo 8C 2900B was celebrated with a standing ovation at Villa d’Este underlines its value as a veritable car of the century. 

Photos: Rémi Dargegen for Classic Driver © 2019