From BattleBots To Alfa Romeos

As enthusiasts in the automotive world, I think we can all agree that we take great pride in our passion for the machinery.

But how many of us can say that we’d be willing to sacrifice or push back life changing opportunities in search of fulfilment of our dreams?

_MG_0196Justins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai

For instance, if you were on track to becoming a lawyer, would you be willing to set that aside for a full year, just to sweep floors as an apprentice at your local restoration shop? Or would you wake up the next morning realizing that your parents would absolutely disown you for even fathoming that type of ideology in the first place? I think most of us would relate to the latter.

But as crazy as the former may be, it wasn’t at all crazy for Justin Chou.

A Teenager & His Robot
battlebots 02Justins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai

As a young lad during grade school, Justin was rather unconventional when it came to interests and hobbies. While most boys his age were chasing girls, Justin found himself taking interest in all things mechanical. So much so that even some of the faculty members at his school realized he was different from the rest of the boys in his class.

It wasn’t too long after when one of his science teachers approached him and asked if he had ever watched a show called BattleBots – where people build robots to fight one another in an arena. Justin took his teachers word, and sure enough, fell in love with the show. “Robots with saws, robots with axes, and speedy robots that would body-slam other robots against the spiked walls, battled against each other for guts and glory – my 13-year-old self was mesmerized; I had to build my own,” he says. I don’t think he nor his teacher realized how much of a spark this ignited for Justin’s future.

battlebots 03Justins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai

The odd part about this is that no one else in Justin’s family was mechanically inclined. This wasn’t some sort of passage from an ancestor or even family friend, it was just Justin, being Justin. So with no one to turn to for guidance, he reverted to the only mentor he could think of: the internet.

“I read everything I could find about metal fabrication, powertrains, and circuitry. I got special permission from my high school to attend community college classes in welding, drafting, and engineering. I talked to every craftsman and mechanic who would spend two minutes with me. I started cobbling together combat robots in our suburban two-car garage, armed with a smattering of Harbor Freight tools, some online forum threads, and a reckless indifference of personal safety,” Justin says.

Though his parents were genuinely concerned for him, they still supported his rather odd interest in the world of battling robotics. After some time, Justin’s robot saw completion, and he became the sole engineer and operator of his self-started BattleBots team. He travelled around the country and entered into many national competitions, and had a rather successful run with it as well. Right up until The Fast and the Furious came out.

From Robots To Automobiles
z 07 - (260Z, but looks the same)Justins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai

In Justin’s words, “the transition from combat robotics to cars was obvious and natural.” He’d already spent hundreds of hours learning the ropes of engineering and building mechanically-driven machines, so why not go bigger and better? Plus, having the ability to pilot a build from a first-person perspective rather than a joystick, was exciting to say the least. So with Hollywood making its second impression on Justin, he took to the building blocks.

Justin’s first automotive purchase was a Honda CR-X Si, and it was kept fairly modest with a few bolt-ons and suspension bits. At the time, people were building all sorts of funky stuff (this was the early 2000s – I think we all know how that went…), but with experience building robots from scratch and having to ‘Frankenstein’ things together to make them work, Justin found himself looking to build something a bit more ‘weird’. So what better than a V8-powered S30Z?

z 04 - under constructionJustins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai

Over the following couple of years, Justin spent the majority of his free time trying to build a Datsun Z with a V8 power plant, but would eventually fail in doing so. He purchased a bucket 260Z, and an assortment of parts to get the V8 swap completed. Though to his demise, the parts ended up being all sorts of wrong, and he wound up in over his own head with the project, ultimately leading him to scrapping it and selling it for pennies on the dollar. With a defeat in the books, he headed off to college and eventually ended up in law school.

z 06 - FIJustins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai

But as Justin further explains, the dream never died. “The idea of building something that was unusual and interesting still appealed to me.”

Constrained by time, but bothered by the fact that he failed in his first attempt at building his Z, Justin rebooted his efforts and took on another V8 Z build. This time however, he was guided by a friend in the Pacific North West who helped talk him through the challenges of the unconventional motor swap, and a few months after graduating law school, the Ford 302-powered 280Z lived.

Mad Man
alfa 01Justins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai

With Z ownership completed and a few years of law practice under his belt, Justin’s network of friends in the close-knit vintage automotive community led him to the good fortune of meeting Conrad Stevenson. Conrad is a well known Alfa restoration guru in the Bay Area, who specializes in highly-complex, high-dollar, concours-level restorations. Many of the cars he has built have been seen and awarded at prestigious events such as the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance and the Mille Miglia.

Justin had the opportunity to tour the one-man shop in Berkeley one day, and found himself “enamored with the beauty of the machines he [Conrad] built by his humble, roll-your-sleeves-up-and-do-it attitude towards car restoration.” I guess you could say fate played its role in this situation, as it would turn itself into an opportunity of a lifetime for Justin.

As mentioned prior, Justin’s infatuation for all things mechanical led him to dream about working in the automotive industry. But as most of us can relate, it had remained a dream. Even for Justin, the thought of going against his family’s specific occupational ambitions for him to join the white collar ‘professional’ workforce was no easy thought to swallow. But he found himself in position where he had to ask: “Conrad, can I sweep your floors in your shop?”

Blown away by the thought, Conrad replied, “Sure, but what about your job as a lawyer?” Justin’s response was that he’d quit, and of course Conrad refused to believe anyone could be that much of a mad man – to leave a promising career, just to sweep floors and learn a thing or two under an ‘apprenticeship’.

But sure enough, a couple of months later, Justin was cleaning the scrap metal pile next to Conrad’s band saw.

Justin explains the next year as being hard. “I learned a lot about building cars: This is how to spot straight and well-gapped panels; this is how you hammer-form sheet metal, rebuild suspension, and freshen up a head. I learned why common wisdom, propagated on the internet, should defer to experience-based intuition. Most of all, I learned that building a show-stopping car is hard, painstaking, and frustrating work. And the only way to get through it is to keep moving forward.”

Ultimately Justin finished his apprenticeship and went back into practicing law, but the skills and craft he learned from Conrad are tools he utilizes in not only his automotive work, but his every day life as well.

The Italian Rat Rod
build 1Justins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai

Moving on to the main purpose of this article, Justin found his love for the Alfa Romeo Giulia after driving the car in an old video game. He was drawn to the elegant lines of the ‘Bertone’ design, and thought it was one of the most beautiful cars ever penned. His first encounter with an Alfa dated back to his high school years, when a maroon GTV pulled into a parking space in his school lot. Justin recollects, “two minutes into my chat with the owner, a police officer walked over and handed me a $450 ticket. I had pulled into a handicapped parking space just to speak with the owner. This car was already costing me money a decade before I started building it!”

2013 Melee 1Justins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai

His purchase of the 1967 Giulia GT1300 Junior took place while he was under apprenticeship at Conrad’s shop. The car had been parked under a tarp for over 20 years, so it had its fair share of patina to say the least. Despite its ratty appearance, Justin was on a grand adventure in professional car restoration, and in his words, “I decided this car would be the vehicle that I would take, and would take me, through it.”

build 5Justins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai

Before starting any sort of restoration, Justin sorted the car out enough to get it into driving condition, and proceeded to run it in the 2013 and 2014 California Melee rallies in full rat-rod trim. It was rattle-canned primer, had a single Recaro bucket seat, and none of the gauges worked. “I stuck duct tape over the rust holes in the floorboards so that road dust wouldn’t fill the cabin. I’d always been drawn to cross-genre cars, so I welded up a side-pipe exhaust and painted the wheels bright red as a nod to American rat-rods.”

2013 Melee 4Justins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai

But eventually Justin realized that he wanted the ability to take the car everywhere, and not just through the back roads. He loved it enough to know that it truly had potential to be the elegant little Italian sports car it was meant to be. So he took the plunge and started a full restoration.

AR506 – Bluette
_MG_0217Justins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai
_MG_0856Justins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai

Justin laid out a plan that would see the Alfa brought back to its former glory in the space of one year. However, as we all know and Justin explains, “building a car is 25% project management, 25% technical skill, and 50% perseverance. Everything will take longer than expected. Everything will be more expensive than expected, and having the ability and willingness to keep making decisions – even if they might later turn out to be the wrong ones – is paramount.”

Well said, and unfortunately true for anyone and everyone who can relate to restoring a car.

The build ultimately took three years to get to its current state, so let me elaborate on that a bit, as there’s quite a bit of detail with this particular GT1300 Junior.

_MG_0190Justins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai

As all Alfa enthusiasts know, the Juniors were Euro market only cars that were built with the gas-tax-friendly purpose in mind, sporting a 1,300cc twin cam engine, instead of the 1,600cc to 1,750cc engines found in normal Giulias. Alfa also implied that the Junior was the entry-level car for those who shied away from the high prices associated with GTAs and GTVs at the time.

build 13Justins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai

Justin began disassembling the car, and found more rust than was visible to the naked eye. After stripping everything, he cut acres of rotten metal out of the car and fabricated new metal replacement panels to reshape the bodywork to its factory design. The whole body was sand-blasted, straightened, skim-coated, and blocked. In that process, Justin remarkably discovered that the car’s original paint was a particularly rare ‘Bluette’ – a color he was rather fond of in the Alfa Romeo swatch book.

_MG_0361Justins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai
_MG_0381Justins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai

From the factory, Junior’s interiors are known to be spartan and retain rubber and vinyl everywhere. They were simple, but a little too simple for Justin’s liking.  He decided to design an interior that served all aspects of comfort, luxury, and aesthetically pleasing styling, all while retaining functionality.

The headliner and side panels were replaced with reproduction pieces, and interestingly enough, he sourced a pair of first generation Miata seats to replace the factory seats in the car. He chose a light saddle color offered in Mercedes-Benz leather, with a diamond quilted pattern in the centers – a “flight of fancy,” in Justin’s words. To complete the elegant yet sporty inspiration, Justin had an AutoPower race roll bar installed, modified to accept the RetroBelt inertial reel three-point safety belts.

_MG_0496Justins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai

Since the Alfa was rather sluggish from the factory, Justin decided to transplant in a refreshed 1,750cc motor, which breathes through a pair of Weber side-draft carburettors. The transmission was also refreshed by his mentor Conrad, and the rear end was replaced with a short-ratio LSD rebuilt by Larry Dickman of Alfa Parts Exchange in California.

With all that sort of power increase, it only made sense to engineer a custom set of dropped front spindles, custom springs, and custom sway bars front and rear.

_MG_0282Justins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai

For wheels, Justin decided on a set of 15-inch Alfaholic GTA alloy reproduction items wrapped in a sticky set of Toyo Proxes RA1s. This wasn’t an easy fit for such a tiny car, so the inner fender wells were sectioned and slightly tubbed to accept the meatier fitment all around.

_MG_0332Justins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai

I’ll add that my favorite element about these cars are the endless amounts of detail in design. To any novice, it may look like another vintage automobile with an odd arch that almost doesn’t belong, but when you really give the car a proper look over, it portrays a rather elegant persona. Justin did this car plenty of justice by having gone through every painstaking line and trim piece, to ensure everything was as mint as absolutely possible. I applaud that type of dedication.

Completed… Kind Of
_MG_0593Justins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai

Throughout the course of the build process, Justin mentioned there were numerous moments where he nearly sold the car. There were other Alfas that came and went that could’ve saved him a ton of money and time versus building his own car. But his devotion to creating his own car outweighed the idea of owning something that someone else built. He explains, “In the end, I’m glad I didn’t go down that primrose path. I got to build a car that is truly mine: to pick the colors I wanted, to apply my personal blend of style and speed, and own a unique bespoke automobile.”

It truly became an Alfa tailored specifically for Justin, and after years of building the car and taking in an astronomical amount of information on getting it down just right, he can finally focus his energy on seat time. The long weekends of fabrication and engineering are now replaced with casual Saturday date-night-in-the-city outings with his wife and easy Sunday morning cruises through the back roads on spirited mountain runs with like-minded individuals. Perhaps even a casual cars and coffee.

But don’t sigh in relief just yet.

_MG_0238Justins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai

Though this build is a prime example of a period-styled resto-mod Alfa, Justin is, and always will be, the kid that built Frankenstein destructive robots. There is a point in the future where the heart of this little Junior is going to undergo yet another form of surgery, but this time, it won’t be so correct.

Justin explains: “My friend in Washington loves Austin wagons. He swaps engines into them but fabricates custom ‘Austin’ valve covers so they look ‘correct’ to the casual eye. I’d like to do something like that: A ‘hidden’ cross-platform engine swap. After all, there is a particularly potent and readily available 1,300cc engine here in the US domestic market.”

Well Justin, I guess we’ll have to follow up in the near future…

Naveed Yousufzai 
Instagram: eatwithnaveed

Cutting Room Floor
_MG_0874Justins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai
_MG_0827Justins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai
_MG_0704Justins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai
_MG_0688Justins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai
_MG_0654Justins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai
_MG_0635Justins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai
_MG_0603Justins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai
_MG_0567Justins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai
_MG_0566Justins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai
_MG_0499Justins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai
_MG_0487Justins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai
_MG_0470Justins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai
_MG_0447Justins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai
_MG_0422Justins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai
_MG_0416Justins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai
_MG_0411Justins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai
_MG_0376Justins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai
_MG_0366Justins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai
_MG_0325Justins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai
_MG_0309Justins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai
_MG_0300Justins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai
_MG_0293Justins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai
_MG_0272Justins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai
_MG_0266Justins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai
_MG_0262Justins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai
_MG_0247Justins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai
_MG_0233Justins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai
_MG_0222Justins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai
_MG_0201Justins-Alfa-For-SpeedHunters-By-Naveed-Yousufzai
ADVERTISEMENT

Comments



Comments are closed.

42 comments

by Oldest
by Best by Newest by Oldest
1

I feel like I remember that battlebot...

Author2

I'm far too young to remember specific robots on the show, but I can confidently say that I'm sure we've seen it at some point!

3

Lol I can't be sure either, the pic was just a blast from the past.

4
Gabriel Ronquillo

Was it Deadblow?

5

Deadblow was Grant Imahara's robot. Grant was already a veteran engineer at the time, having done work for Industrial Light and Magic and Lucasfilm. Deadblow was a much more impressive and successful robot than any of mine!

Thanks for commenting. ~Justin

6

Lol that's probably the one I'm thinking of.

7

Deadblow was Grant Imahara's robot. Grant was already a veteran engineer at the time, having done work for Industrial Light and Magic and Lucasfilm. Deadblow was a much more impressive and successful robot than any of mine!

Thanks for commenting. ~Justin

8

Beautifully done up and one heck of a story of how this car came to be!

9

thank you Spirit Road! It has been a wild ride.

10

Wow what a great story and what a special car!

11

Thank you Ameya! I'm very grateful that Naveed helped share the story.

12

The Alfa was nowhere near to sluggish even with the 1.3 engine. Great story, great car well besides the interior. I would accept it for a show car, but not for a go car. I feel sorry for someone who will spend a few hours in a full leather interior under California's sun, in a 1967 car.

13

beauty is pain ;)

14

Is that Grant Imahara from Mythbusters also pictured with Justin in one of the earlier photo's??

15

Yes! Good eye!

16

Good spot! But yeah, that might actually be him!

17

Beatifull, Classy car! Hats off to Justin for sticking to his plan and coming up with this.
And since it is HIS car, let him perform the engine swap he wants.
Rotary?

18

Thank you Matthijsgrit! My fantasy is to swap the Hayabusa 1300cc engine. I've been keeping an eye on MotoIQ's Miatabusa but it looks like the team over there never quite got it working right... Thanks for reading! - JC

19

Didn't see that one coming... It would be quite the change of heart/character, wouldn't it?! Well, like I said: go with YOUR plans!! Just try and if you don't like the outcome, try again :-)

20

He is likely talking about the 1.3 16v from the Suzuki Swift GT, 100 hp.

21

Surprisingly close! My fantasy swap is the 1300 Suzuki Hayabusa engine. But it might make the car undriveable, so we'll see... Thanks for commenting! JC

22

Hi JC, thanks for replying, it's possible to keep the manual transmition and the stick with the Hayabusa engine or you have to go with the dogbox transmision? awesome, you don't see this Alfas getting crazy swaps, go for it, different is better!

23

Or a hayabusa. Those r 1300 aren't they?

24

Really grown. This is SH in top form

25

Agreed! Naveed did a great job!

26
thathellastockusdm3rdgenyaris@instagram

I remember reading about this guys battlebots in nintendo power in the early 2000s and popular mechanics and whatnot, i dont think he was a top contendor or maybe he was a champion.

anyways mechanical things and electronics like battlebots go well with cars and i remember being fond of the engenuity that people would put into them especially on a shoestring budget. the most of the expense was the coding.

27

You're probably thinking of Grant Imahara, who ran Team Deadblow. He was one of the top guys at Industrial Light & Magic and Lucasfilm (and built the Energizer bunny!). Super nice guy too!

28

I can relate I mean I like robots and cars I might as well major in both

29

Do it!! -JC

30

Great colour. are you guys determined to make me buy a Giulia. 2 amazing versions in a couple of weeks. these are my favourite Alfa Romeo
I would put the 3.2 v6 in mine.

31

Navheed, this article is amazing. The back story and old photos really sucked me into this story. Plus it's an extremely unique platform choice for a restoration. This Alfa looks amazing.

Author32

Thanks man! It was honoring to be able to tell Justin's story!

33

What an awesome article! It really shows Justin's dedication and the life voyage he traveled to learn how to build cars rather than just feature which bodyshop did the paint and what brand of wheels he bought.

His Junior is a looker,I really like the lack of bumpers, stance and colour and the fact didn't try to clone a GTA. I'm not sure about swapping out the engine to a different modern unit though unless its a 2.0 Twinspark motor from an Alfa 75, even so I'd probably keep the Weber carbs and twincam motor even though they're not as efficient as fuel injection.

I got to know these cars pretty well over the past 2 years, I started restoring the exact same model, a 1967 Gt Junior (just in Rhd). My dad and I are doing most of the work and uploading it to our youtube channel, Raising Junior: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yla739wkgCQ&t=146s

34

This is lovely, well done fella!

35

This made my day. I daily drove a 71 GTV with a 2000cc in LA for 8 years... it's an unforgettable experience. Love your car!

36

i love the rain photos!

i want an alfa too. damn.

37

best article I have read speedhunters in quite a while. way to go on the build, and pushing yourself to learn. I can relate to no one in my family have technical skill, and I built my first car (turbocharged 1974 vw bug) from the internet and books!

38

I just had to log in and comment today. Been with Speedhunters since the beginning, but this is seriously one of the best stories I've read of! Spectacular!

39
Daniel P Huneault

I lost interest in battlebots when everyone realized that the "wedge" design was the most effective - I would like to see the show go more towards a more humanoid aspect - otherwise how are ever to get to the point of patlabour, gundam or pacific rim type robots??!!! lol

You did an amazing job on the car and I love how well the interior was done, and it compliments the blue exterior so well great job!

40
Max @ghettoporsche

THE best article of 2018. Period.
Love the story, love the car and #nohomo here: love Justin.

This article is what Speedhunters is about in my opinion.

41
42

Love this build, Alfa Guilia's are just achingly pretty from any angle, and no one does a blue car like the Italians either! Only gripe would be the seats, I think low backs would suit better, but that's only my personal opinion, which counts for nothing!

The Mk1 Miata/MX-5 connection could be extended on with the engine swap maybe? 1600cc Mazda engines are pretty reliable, readily available and good for decent horsepower with additional turbos or superchargers. They look pretty close to the original Alfa engine too, in terms of cam covers, and with a bit of crackle coating in the body colour, would set the engine bay off perfectly! :D

OFFICIAL SPEEDHUNTERS SUPPLIERS