Alfa Romeo GTV 2.0 Lusso

Schools closed, old people freezing in their homes, motorists stranded on deserted and impassable country lanes? Welcome to Great Britain, February ‘09.  So severe was this weeks weather that it successfully unseated the global economic downturn as the depressing news item of the week. 

Secretly, though, we love heavy snow in the UK.  Just last year we were bemoaning the lack of a recent white Christmas, and the sad fact that it” doesn’t snow like it used to”.  Now we’re being pulled out of our cars through the gap where the front windshield used to be.  The English love severe weather in the same way we love credit crunches, wars and binge-drinking youth; because it gives us something to moan about, and if we didn’t have that we would not know what to do.  I suspect heavily that this is why Britain loves the Alfa Romeo.

Alfa Twin Spark Coupe

My Alfa was a 2-litre GTV Lusso and was unusual as it had a carbon fibre airbox and a full Momo interior.  The seats were blood red leather, and the carpets were a devilish shade of red too.  It was a gorgeous object;  not particularly fast, but everywhere it went, it seemed to sing to anyone who would listen.  As you drove through a town centre, it would howl at passers-bay, as if to say, “look at me, I’ve got red carpets.”

Unfortunately, the more unusual your choice of machine, the more catastrophic and financially ruinous the results are likely to be.  It certainly had an exotic temperament.  In the winter the door barrels, which were seated deep into the door skins would freeze solid and seal me inside the car.  The only way to physically get out was to drive to a friend’s house and phone them and ask them to bring some boiling water outside to unfreeze the locks.  The engine management computer would routinely forget what it was supposed to be doing and just open the throttle fully.  This was quite alarming when you’re on Kensington High Street in second gear in heavy traffic.  It finally died one morning on the Motorway, when it shot an arm through the side of the crank and exploded in a 120 mph fireball.  I think you could actually see the smoke trail from space using a modestly-equipped satellite. 

Falling In Love (Is Hard On The Knees)

It was a terrible car, but God I miss it, because it got so much of the basics right.  Looks, noise and crucially feel were all there in abundance.  My acid test for steering feel is thus;  Get up to fifty miles per hour, wander slightly out of lane, position wheels over the white line, run over exactly five ‘cats eyes’, and then return to lane.  In a very modern car, this is not as easy as it sounds such is the insulation between you as driver and the sensation of actually driving.  The GTV represents a real ratcheting-down of simple sensation.  You will feel every bump, and it’s all the better for it.

Alfa Romeo GTV Performance

This is certainly not a quick car.  The 2-litre four revs long and lusty, but despite it begging to be drawn out, it never really gets on cam.  The lack of torque is most pronounced in forth where it feels like it is struggling for a majority of the time, but there’s a sweet spot in the rev band as you change to fifth at sixty and it then starts to make better headway.   This is not a car you buy for chasing hot hatches down B-roads; it is one you buy to pretend to, whilst enjoying the looks, sound and sense of occasion that accompanies the chase from several miles back.  Go to Youtube and type in “Alfa GTV engine sound”, and you’ll understand then.

This lack of neck-snapping progress can be forgiven on the grounds of it’s looks alone.  To me, the styling borders on perfection through a clever use of indeterminate nuance.  There are cars which are classically more beautiful, but none I can think of that look so righteous or self-consciously confident in their unique appeal.  A ‘90s coupe that tried to look forward and now doesn’t look dated in retrospect upon it’s part, it is a truly remarkable shape.

Auto Italia and the AROC

Italian car magazines will have you believe that Alfa Romeos in general are becoming more reliable with each passing year, and that if you take your time and conduct some careful research before buying a used Alfa, that you will in some way be immune to any kind of catastrophic component failure.  This is of course complete nonsense.  It will break, and it will be expensive to fix.  My car was but merely three years old, had a full service history and was subject to a professional inspection prior to purchase, and it was still as owner-friendly as AIDS.

Alfa Romeo Reliability

Yet, despite the fact I was fully aware of all of this before I bought one, I still wanted it.  I’ve just bought a second-hand Apple Mac computer too.  It's like a PC for people with imagination, and a leaning towards sadomasochism.   Many would see it as merely an illogical flirtation of self-reward over common sense.  Explaining the Apple computer’s tangible benefits is tricky, as there are, if I’m being honest, none at all.  I guess it's more of a feel thing, as I rarely use mine for anything more complex than composing this shit.   In all honesty there is probably no excuse for having one.  I can see now why my ex girlfriend was rather angry when I spent the five hundred pounds we had saved for a holiday on a carbon airbox for my GTV.