When introduced in 1931, the Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 established new standards for high-performance sports cars. Developed by the brilliant engineer Vittorio Jano – who had already delivered to Alfa Romeo the highly successful 6C 1750 and P2 Grand Prix – the 8C boasted an all-aluminum, 2.3-liter twin-cam straight eight, supercharged to produce 140 bhp.

Throughout the early 1930s, the 8C 2300 dominated sports car racing, capturing multiple wins at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the 1000 Miglia, and the Targa Florio. In single-seater form, the Monoposto “Tipo B” or P3 won six races in its debut season, including the major Grands Prix of France, Germany, and Italy. In typical Alfa Romeo fashion, the 8C 2300 was offered to private customers in road-going form, sold as a bare chassis in short- and long-wheelbase variants, intended for bespoke coachwork by firms such as Touring and Zagato.

Another firm renowned for its coachwork on the 8C 2300 was Carrosserie Figoni. Established by Italian expatriate Giuseppe “Joseph” Figoni and headquartered in Boulogne-sur-Seine on the outskirts of Paris, the firm rose from humble beginnings to become one of Europe’s most influential coachbuilders. Exceptionally high build quality, fine woodwork, luxurious interiors, and elegant styling characterized Figoni bodies of the late 1920s and early 1930s. Figoni’s later partnership with Ovidio Falaschi would lead to some of the most flamboyant and dramatic coachwork of the Art Deco era, defining the streamlined aesthetic of late 1930s French automobiles.

The first body that Figoni built on an Alfa Romeo chassis was a lightweight tourer for Raymond Sommer’s short-chassis 8C 2300. It proved an auspicious beginning, as the car went on to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1932, with Sommer and co-driver Luigi Chinetti. In addition to lightweight racing bodies, Figoni also built elegant, custom coachwork for road-going 2.3s.

As chronicled in Peter M. Larsen and Ben Erickson’s Joseph Figoni: Le Grand Couturier de la Carrosserie Automobile Alfa Romeo, Figoni built coachwork for seven road-going 8C 2300s between 1932 and 1935: one Faux Cabriolet and six open-body styles. Each was built to order, and this striking two-seater, roadster-type Torpédo, mounted on the highly developed third-series 8C 2300 chassis 2311207, is certainly no exception.

According to the Archives Claude Figoni, this body was originally ordered in November 1933 for the Alfa Romeo’s first owner, Louis Jeantet. Born in 1897, Jeantet was a successful industrialist and, during the 1920s, the official French importer for Firestone tires. In 1924, he married Simone Violet, co-owner of the famous Byrrh aperitif company, and the couple lived in Paris until 1939, when they relocated to Geneva, Switzerland.

Jeantet’s 8C 2300 is a particularly striking example, possessing several distinctive features: a Monza-style cowl with a rare Alfa Romeo Paris badge, a lightweight folding soft top with exposed bows, long, flowing fenders, a separate trunk, and dual rear-mounted spares. As Larsen and Erickson note: “The body has no side windows, side curtains, beltline or other ornamentation. It is a body that would be plain from the hand of any other carrossier, but its austerity is alleviated by handsome and perfectly balanced proportions that achieve an understated yet exciting look…It is a classic sportscar style conceived at the cusp in time just before aerodynamic thinking changed car design forever.”

It is believed that chassis 2311207 remained in France throughout WWII and was eventually exported to the UK in 1953, where it was first owned by Henry Simms Norman Adams and registered in Norfolk. Around 1961, Adams sold the Alfa Romeo, and it was exported to the US, where it was acquired by noted collector and historian Joel Finn of Syracuse, New York. After a brief period, the car passed into the hands of Stanford Landell, a General Motors executive who purchased the Alfa Romeo on the advice of his colleague, the legendary collector Charles Chayne.

Landell undertook the car’s first restoration, a painstaking multi-year project that was completed in 1965. His work was handsomely rewarded with Best of Show honors at the Carnival of Cars in Detroit and a First Place award at the AACA Fall Meet in Hershey, Pennsylvania. During Landell’s ownership, the Figoni-bodied 2.3 was joined by a Monza and was featured in several notable publications, including The Alfa Romeo Story and Automobile Quarterly.

The car remained with Landell until the early 1980s, after which it passed through a succession of respected Alfisti, including Bill Serri, Peter Agg, and David Cohen. In 1985, it was acquired by Swedish collector Karl Eric Fröjd, who – like Landell – kept the Figoni Torpédo as a stablemate to a Monza.

Since 1988, chassis 2311207 has had just two long-term owners: first, Henry W. Petronis of Maryland, who maintained it for over two decades among his stable of superb prewar classics. The current owner acquired the Alfa in 2010, adding it to a collection of the world’s most celebrated prewar and postwar sports cars. During this stewardship, the 8C 2300 has been exhibited twice at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance®, first in 2013 and again in 2022, following a concours-quality repaint by the respected specialists at Dennison International. Today, it presents in a tasteful color scheme of dark blue over red, which perfectly suits its elegant, understated design.

By any measure, a Figoni-bodied Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 ranks among the most exclusive and sophisticated automobiles of its era – a stylish, luxuriously appointed touring car built on one of the greatest sporting chassis of all time. The unmistakable sound of the gear-driven, supercharged straight eight still stirs the soul, just as it did in 1933. Few automobiles of the period can rival an eight-cylinder Alfa Romeo in terms of performance, beauty, and engineering excellence.

Fittingly, this remarkable Figoni-bodied Torpédo has earned the admiration of even the most discerning marque historians. In The Legendary 2.3, Simon Moore writes: “It is really nice that a few long chassis cars survive in sympathetic hands rather than being cut up into short chassis or Monzas, or rebodied with new Le Mans-style bodies. This is a lovely car and bears close examination if you get the chance.”

Presented here is that rare chance.