We love a good “barn find” story around here.
And that’s doubly true when said barn find is a super rare Italian sports car from one of the most iconic names in automotive history.
So when we saw this vintage Alfa Romeo Giulietta Spider nestled in between the rows of classic Detroit steel at the 2024 Goodguys Summit Racing Nationals, we had to track down the owner and get its backstory.
“It was built in ’57 and, in Europe, they go by the year it was built,” Chad Clark explains. “By the time it got here, when it shows up on the boat, it was 1958. So according to Ohio, it’s a 1958.”
Chad’s been a car guy since forever and grew up working on the vintage American cars his various family members owned—but his gearhead journey took a decidedly Italian turn once he graduated from college.
“I moved to a small town in northwest Ohio, the middle of nowhere,” he tells us. “I’m an engineer, and my neighbor was a retired engineer from the same place that I worked.”
Turns out, his new neighbor was a car nut too. “He had an old Model T that was his daily driver,” Chad muses. “So I’d just go and help him tinker.”
Then one fateful day, his neighbor took him to an old barn he had on his property.
“He showed me this old Alfa. He had restored it in the 1970s, but now it was stuck and filled with acorns,” Chad describes. “So he basically just gave it to me.”
With the brakes frozen and car sunk up to its axles in mud, Chad summarily dragged the car out of the barn, loaded it onto a trailer, and began sorting it all out.
Chad stresses that his goal wasn’t a full restoration here–he wanted to maintain the car’s originality while making the Alfa a fun, reliable driver. “I’ve done a lot of mechanical stuff to it,” he describes. “But cosmetically I’ve kept it the looking the same way as we pulled it out of the barn.”
The previous owner had rebuilt the 1.3L engine in the 1970s, so it just needed some going over to get it back up-to-snuff. Chad also went through the brake and suspension systems, and rebuilt the transmission himself.
“Yeah, it leaks some oil,” he laughs. “But the car runs really well.”
Beyond that, the car is a rolling time capsule, still wearing the red-over-white paint respray that the previous owner did back in the 1970s.
And Chad explains that the Alfa’s as-found condition is a big part of the appeal here. “I store it in the garage and if the kids bump their bikes into it, I don’t care about getting it scratched.”
More importantly, Chad drives the car—a lot.
“The kids like to ride in it,” he smiles. “So I’ll take it to soccer practices and stuff. And I’ll take it to work on nice days.”
When we asked Chad about his future plans with the car, he didn’t hesitate to snap back a response:
“I’m keeping it forever, just keeping it drivable and on the road,” he says. “It’s perfect right now.”
…And we couldn’t agree more.
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