One of the many classic cars built in the 1950s was the 1953 Alfa Romeo 6C 3000 Competizione Maggiorata Colli Spider. Hidden by Alfa Romeo due to the Second World War, the 6C 3000 CM Colli Spider had an advantage over its competition as no one ever saw a vehicle quite like it before. The previous models of the 6C 3000 CM was powerful indeed but it wasn’t able to hurdle over its competitors from Ferrari and Vittorio Janos Lancia. With victory in mind, Alfa Romeo designed the 1953 6C 3000 CM Colli Spider and it won the first Gran Premio Supercorte Maggiore in Meran in 1953 at the hands of driver Juan Manuel Fangio.

The Spider’s Roots

As touched on above, Alfa Romeo anticipated a war and hid the molds they made for competition cars and production molds. After the Second World War was over, Alfa Romeo dug up their models and immediately continued production. This gave birth to the Alfra Romeo 158 Grand Prix racer, which was the winner of the first ever Formula 1 Championship held in 1950. It also produced the 6C 2500 road car which was the only luxury super car available at the time.

Alfa Romeo proceeded to make modifications to their models and among these was the shorter wheelbase and revised rear suspension. They then cut 20mm further to the wheelbase in order to lessen weight and improve the car’s ability to take corners. Also, Alfa Romeo replaced the rear torsion bar and friction damper setup with a single transverse leaf spring and twin hydraulic dampers. They also improved the engine performance going from 120 brake horsepower to a 145 brake horsepower. These changes coupled with an aerodynamic body resulted to top speeds of over 200 kilometers per hour for the 6C 3000. Despite these model changes, Alfa Romeo was still unable to beat competitors from Ferrari and Lancia.

Now building for the 1953 competitions, Alfa Romeo designed a car that used an engine with 6 cylinders with a displacement of just under 3.5 liters. This made Alfa Romeo’s new car twice as powerful compared to the 1947 model and has dubbed it the Alfa Romeo 6C 3000 CM Colli Spider. For your information, only 2 of these speed demons were ever built. The first one was the one that Fangio drove to victory and the second one, which utilized a shorter chassis and a 3-liter engine, was destroyed during its first test. Today, the only 6C 3000 CM Colli Spider can be seen at Museo Storico Alfa Romeo.

William is enthralled with muscle cars and loves to write about these classics to help educate others about these amazing vehicles.