Posts Tagged ‘alfa’

How It All Started – Cheap Alfas!

March 15, 2011

No doubt you’ve often wondered to yourself, how can I be more like the guy that writes those posts on RustyButTrusty? Well, here’s your chance to be exactly like me! Step 1: Start with a couple of cheap Alfas. Step 2: Add lots and lots of money, without any expectation aside from the enjoyment of some fine Italian automobiles that nobody else except fellow oddball car nuts will see the value in. Step 3: Profit! I mean, Success!

And unlike me, there’s no need to spend time dilly-dallying about, with a 14-year gap between the acquisition of your transaxle Alfa and your convertible Alfa. You can go in head-first with this lovely pair. Let’s start off with the prettier of the two, this beautiful 1976 Alfetta GT from when Alfa was confidently relying on the past racing glory of the 159 Alfetta race car, instead of the past sales & racing glory of the Giulietta sprint veloce. The seller calls this color dutch blue (blu olandese), although to be honest, I thought that was a lighter shade. But what do I know, my Alfetta is (sadly) red, and this color seems to suit the car a lot better. At $500, I’m just thrilled he took the time to write such a thorough description of the car, which is listed in Sammamish, WA (near Seattle) for $500.

1976 Alfa Romeo Alfetta GT

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The Gateway Drug – Alfa Romeo Spiders

May 16, 2009

My entry to cheap, fun sportscars was with my ’77 rubber-bumper spider. Granted, it’s not the prettiest of Alfa’s creations, but at a low cost-of-entry, you get a convertible with that magical twin-cam and 5-speed, plus respectable, safe handling, even in higher-mile cars. I’ll admit I went over the top with my spider, so it no longer fits with our theme, but a lot of that was cosmetic, and drivetrain condition is our first concern here (being California-based, dangerous rust is usually less of an issue). Although I wouldn’t want to encourage it, the great thing for us with spiders is their fallback strategy – unless they’re completely thrashed, parting out is feasible (something I’d like to do to learn more about my car).

1978 Alfa Romeo Spider

First up is a 1978 spider on Craigslist. Laid up for 20 years (1989 is 20 years ago?!), that means this car was only on the road for 11 years of its life, so it’s not an outrageous assumption that the rust is fairly minimal, miles would be around 100K, and if you’re lucky, the cosmetics won’t be half-bad. My guess on reasons for the lay-up would be something like a blown head gasket or failed SPICA fuel injection. Check for chocolate milkshake-like emulsion on the radiator cap or oil in the coolant overflow tank for the former, and fuelish-smelling oil for the latter. Fixing either of these would be $200 – $400 in parts (if you go used with the SPICA), and I believe having someone install the SPICA (used) is $750ish including parts. At $950 asking, this puts you at $1700 on the outside, probably a bit more when you figure in registration and resurrection costs. Of course, if you’re lucky the cause was nothing more than someone losing interest in a sports car.

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