A gathering... crazy!

There has always been a special relationship between the Museum and Alfa Matta, but now even more so!

We didn't get there in time to finish celebrating the first seventy years of the iconic off-roader that, just over a month after our meeting with the founder of the Italian Matta Register Franco Melotti, the Museum hosted the Matta rally.

And what would a rally be without the cars? In addition to the Mattisti, the Matta came to the Museum:

• a version of the Celere, with an official dark red colour
• one of the few civilians ever produced (154 in total) in its classic sand colour
• a version with Carabinieri equipment
• a standard army version khaki olive green
• Finally, the re-edition of a Matta that crossed the Mato Grosso in South America in 1952. 

Jewellery visiting the Museum together with two special gifts for us!

The first one is the rally plate for our little one, the Alfa Matta of the Museum. The Museum's AR/51, chassis no. 22, is also officially part of the register: a day like this is certainly not forgotten!

Thanks to our friends from the Alfa Romeo Matta Registry for the lovely gathering and the photographs published in this article. 

The second gift has a longer story, which we want to tell.

For several years now, at rallies organised by the Alfa Romeo Matta Register, Matta enthusiasts and owners have been given a limited number of prints as a souvenir of the event. The prints are reproductions of a watercolour by Francesco Strevella , motoring artist an expert in automotive paintings.

To mark Matta's 70th birthday in 2021, the print depicts the presentation of the AR 51 during the Formula 1 Grand Prix on 16 September 1951, reinterpreted by Strevella from a black-and-white photograph of the event. 

And that's not all: 2021 is also the 70th year since the inauguration of the Autocentro di Polizia in Milan, where one of the Matta cars used by the Ministry of the Interior in the 1950s and 1960s is kept.

Two birthdays portrayed in one beautiful image, reproduced in 30 copies," said co-founder Franco Melotti. said the co-founder of the register, Franco Melotti -. Number 0, the original in watercolour, we have decided to donate to the Museum's most courteous, thoughtful and amiable hostess, the neo-matrist Elisabetta Cozzi".

The painting is the one that opens this news item.

Can we say that? We are also a little moved!

Thank you Franco, thank you Mattisti! See you at the next gathering!