Alfa Romeo Owners Club Announces a New Chapter: Three Rivers Alfisti!

The Three Rivers Alfisiti, the first new chapter of the Alfa Romeo Club since 2005, was announced at the 2017 Cortile Italian Car Show during the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix.

by Bernard Martin

In the late 1970's Howard West, Don Wannagat, Kevin Benzenhoefer and several others initiated the development of an Alfa Romeo Owners Club chapter in the Pittsburgh area called "Allegheny Alfisti". Several meetings where held over about 3 year period but the club just wasn't able to get up and running.

In 2010, during the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix's Cortile Italian Car Show that was celebrating the "Alfa Century",  and featured a 1939 Alfa Romeo Tipo 256 owners by Mark Gessler.

This is a 1939 Alfa Romeo Tipo 256 with reconstructed aerodynamic berlinetta Touring coachwork. It is the only correct example in existence. The underlying Tipo 256 chassis and drive train were rediscovered in 1993 with postwar cabriolet coachwork of unknown origin. The reconstuction of this highly complex superleggera (super-light) aluminum body was realized through a collaboration between the former head of Carrozzeria Touring, Carlo Felice Bianci Anderloni; master coachbuilder Dino Cognaloto; and rare archive documents provided by Alfa Romeo. The coachwork was completed in Italy in 2003 just prior to Anderloni’s death. It was the famed designer’s final project.

 Marianne Fenoglietto and Jim Shaw started discussing the idea of creating an AROC chapter in Western Pennsylvania.  ​Marianne's family had donated a wonderful Alfa Romeo cake to celebrate the 100th Anniversary of Alfa Romeo, the "Alfa Century", and Jim Shaw was the Chef for the Cortile.  Both owned Spiders and suggested doing some driving events to gage some interest.  ​

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The idea was discussed for quite a number of years but no one could really take the mantle of leadership to get a club launched.  There where quite a few potential members, who where more than willing to help out, but the idea needed someone to really drive home the entire launch effort.

In 2016, Ron Lewis Automotive Group became the only local Alfa Romeo dealer in the Western Pennsylvania area.  Jim Neville, who was the Alfa Romeo chairperson for the Cortile just happened to be stuck on the tarmac with the sales team from Ron Lewis as they where returning from Alfa Romeo corporate training.  

Don Wannagat's Alfa enjoying the sunset at the 2017 PVGP Historic Races at Pittsburgh International Race Complex

The team had just finished being  truly indoctrinated as new Afisti and where quite excited to learn about that the Cortile was celebrating Alfa Romeo as it's Proiettore Macchina for 2017. 

Gwen Lewis, was put in charge of the promotion for the new Alfa Romeo Giulia and hosted "An Evening with the Giulia" in Sewickly in April of 2017.

  It was at that event that the Alfa Romeo Owners Club chapter idea again sprung up.  Bernard Martin and Jim Neville proposed to Gwen Lewis and Jobie Glessner from the dealership that they might want to be a part of starting an Alfa Romeo Owner's Club chapter to bring together the Alfsiti in the Three Rivers area.  Gwen fully embraced the idea!.  Bernie was the Managing Director of the Cortile and also an Alfa Romeo owner. It was decided that night to start the process of finally forming an AROC chapter.

On June 8, 2017, Gwen hosted an initial exploratory meeting and it was voted and denied that the group would move forward with the chapter formation.  Gwen reached out to Enrique Zuniga at AROC and with all of the help and insight Enrique provided it was denied to make an official announced during the 2017 Alfa Romeo Proiettore Macchina celebration at the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix's Cortile Italian Car Show.

Howard West's Alfa Romeo Sprint Speciale

In celebration of Alfa Romeo's return to Pittsburgh, Gwen Lewis commissioned an Art Car during the PVGP's midweek celebration, that highlighted local artist Dave O'Brien's Live Painting with Giulia at Market Square and featured Andy Warhol on the hood.

The Three Rivers Alfisti officially launched at the Cortile Italian Car Show Saturday July 15, 2017. 

Howard West's Sprint Speciale was on display at the 2017 show, and Don Wannagat's' Alfa was on the track both weekends bringing AROC history in along the Three Rivers full circle.