Rusty But Trusty

Recent listings on eBay, albeit for 5-figure prices, inspired a quick little trip to Europe to see what’s available there in the way of the Alfa 6. Alfa’s first six-cylinder car since the inline 6 2600 of the 1960s, the Alfa 6 was merely related to the Alfetta platform cars, but with a front-mounted transmission (making it the only rear-wheel-drive V6 Alfa Romeo with a front-mounted transmission). It did use the same front torsion bar, rear de Dion set up that contributed greatly to the roadholding and balance of the Alfetta range. Of the roughly 12,000 cars produced, less than 2000 were built with the fuel-injected 2.5-liter V6, which had an output of 156hp. Intended as Alfa’s response to family-size BMW, Peugeot and Mercedes sedans, you can find this 1984 Alfa Romeo Alfa 6 Quadrifoglio Oro for sale for €2800 ($3890 at the current exchange rate), somewhere in Belgium.

A reasonably good looking sedan, if somewhat bland by Alfa standards, the Alfa 6 was also a pilot platform of sorts for the new Giuseppe Busso-designed V6. Initially released with an intake fed by six (!!) Dell’Orto carburetors, which probably sounded divine but were challenging to set up, the revised Alfa 6 sported Bosch fuel injection, as seen on all North American market Alfa V6s. Given this car is near the bottom end of the market – most cars are in the €10-15,000 range – it looks very decent. Not spotless and shiny, but quite usable.

The only details given are that it has 154,000km and is in good condition. Likely heavier than a Milano or a GTV6, it can’t be too fast, but you still get that beautiful music and great handling. At least it’s not as slow as the diesel, and speaking of those, perhaps the recently-sold-on-eBay Alfa 6 diesel would be a candidate for a gasoline engine transplant, or better yet, a twin-turbo V6 from a dead Callaway GTV6. You’d easily beat a 164 in performance, if not looks.

The interior looks to be in excellent condition, with no cracking of the dash, and spotless grey seats. It’s nice to see the traditional Alfa 5-speed in this large sedan, instead of the power-sapping 3-speed automatic. One or two Alfa 6s were federalized with the intent of bringing them to the North American market, but they were never unleashed on the general public.

Here’s the engine. Yes, things are not too clean, but this appears to be the cheapest running Alfa 6 on the market. And speaking of being on the market, the photos of this car are dated 2011, which either means they’re that old, or the seller has an old digital camera. Either way, you can reach him at the listed email address and find out whether you (if you’re in one of the other 49 states) can bring this home.

Tags: alfa 6, alfa romeo, Feature, italian, sedan

This entry was posted on March 12, 2014 at 11:09 am and is filed under Feature. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.