Posts Tagged ‘italian’

2013 Alfa Convention Follow-Up – More Event Pics

July 17, 2013

Mostly RustyButTrusty is not a car show site – there are plenty of other sites where you can find pictures of shiny cars. However, for this case I’ll make an exception, mostly to drive the point home that you can amazingly *still* afford cars related to some of the shiny ones in this post, some of them so closely related that they have nearly the same engine and suspension. A prime example of this is this row of 4 Alfa Romeo Giulietta and Giulia Sprint Speciales – the number 81 car raced at Sebring back in the early 1960s. Not only that, the owner had driven it down from British Columbia with his wife and was doing the high performance driving school, time trials, and the concorso!

Alfa SS row with Sebring car

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The Sheen is Off – 1967 Fiat 600

June 25, 2013

It’s pretty rare to find any kind of older, pre-1970s Fiat in decent shape for short money. With the ubiquity of the new Fiat 500s, it’s also hard to find a Fiat that Charlie Sheen has not advertised. Nowadays, the only Fiats of this period that are cheap are projects or complete rust buckets. And that’s not much of a surprise, either – as I was mentioning on a recent post about a VW Rabbit, the older economy cars just diappear after a while, and even enthusiasts don’t seem to have them. Which is funny, because there is a distinct type of fun in these simple, cheap cars. For example, this 600 in Duboistown, PA near Williamsport. It’s $3800 for a running, inspected car with some rust in the rear floors – really not so bad for a car of its age outside of the dry states. Assuming, of course, that the Pennsylvania state inspection means the structure is solid and all electrics and brakes work, this would be a great driver project.

1967 Fiat 600 right front

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Free Car! 1976 Alfa Romeo Spider

June 9, 2013

Those of you who’ve been reading for a while will know that there’s a 1977 Alfa Romeo Spider that’s responsible for my involvement in the hobby, this blog, and the hole blown out the side of my wallet. Well, here’s a chance for a lucky person in or near Clifton, VA to go down the same rabbit hole, without that silly initial investment I paid. That’s right folks, this car on the AlfaBB is free!

1976 Alfa Romeo Spider

And for free, or even for a smaller 3 or 4 digit sum, this is a pretty good deal. You could probably get that money back in parts, but thanks to an owner who doesn’t want to deal with a non-starting car, you don’t even have to pay that! So what do we have here? Well, according to the owner, it was his daily driver until 5 years ago, and he was amazed by the fact it would always start, even in cold weather. He started it regularly even after that, but now it’s given up the ghost. If you zoom in on the picture, you can also see the rockers are fairly crusty. While the top is faded, it seems to be intact. So the answer to the question is – assuming the rust is not terminal (and it takes a lot for that to happen, even if it looks bad) a fun top-down beater. And if some light repairs don’t cure the problem, you can always salvage/sell what’s valuable (drivetrain, interior bits) and get rid of the rest. Hmm, 24 Hours of Lemons here we come?