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ItalianCar | March 19, 2024

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Alfa Romeo Giulia joins the stable

Alfa Romeo Giulia joins the stable
Pete Accini

Well it had to happen, I can only last so long without a classic Italian car in the fleet. After many months spent trawling the net for a suitable jalopy I finally came up trumps and found a gem of a Giulia.

Truth be told I wasn’t looking for a sedan. I thought a tidy little Alfa 105 Coupe would fit the bill nicely or perhaps, if I was lucky, something a little more obscure might pop up. I had drawn up a shortlist of candidates and given myself a strict budget – basically I could spend whatever I reckoned I’d get for the modern car I was going to shift to make way for the classic. So here’s the full shortlist in no particular order.

  • Alfa Romeo 105 Coupe. Any model would do but a stepfont would be ideal.
  • Alfa 2600 Coupe. Rare, old and probably not very likely to turn up in Brisbane.
  • Lancia Fulvia Coupe. Anything bar the later models with the raised, UK market outer headlights.
  • Lancia Flavia Coupe. The earlier the better.
  • Fiat 130 Coupe. I know these can be more trouble than a pitbull with a personality disorder, but they’re so cool.
  • Fiat 124 Coupe. Anything other than the last of the breed, the CC.

You can see where I was heading can’t you? A cool coupe with which to live out my Marcello Mastroianni fantasies. And then I saw the ad for a Giulia Sedan that was local and looked good in the photos so I thought I’d just go and see what it was like.

We’ll to say I was impressed when I got there would be an understatement. Imagine turning up at a dream garage in your home town that you didn’t know existed. Full of the exotic (modern Ferraris and Masers), the classic (Sunbeam Alpine, Giulietta Spider) and the downright bizarre (Bond Bug!). Then to be greeted by Cameron the super-friendly owner, who happens to be a Ferrari trained mechanic.

Cameron showed me the little Alfa that he had built up from a bare shell into an exquisite Super Ti style fast road car. He then generously encouraged me to take the car for a quick blast around the local streets.

It occurred to me at the time that if I was not going to be persuaded by this, if I was immune to the little racer’s charms then I was probably over the whole classic car thing. If this car didn’t ring my bell then no old car ever would.

I bought it. No haggling over the price – how could I? I did ask for the car to be made a little less hardcore though, it was going to be my daily drive after all. So Cameron generously offered to swap out the shocks to the slightly more compliant Konis, reinstate the stock exhaust and air cleaners.

Keep watching for further updates on how the Giulia adapts to life as a daily driver.

Comments

  1. Sam

    Love Guilias! Can we have more about this car please?