Alfa bits and Lancia bits

["Jay T Hinton" <jhinton@xxxxxxx>]

Since being away on vacation in France and Italy for the past several
weeks, I had the pleasure of catching up on a big bunch of Alfa
digests.  Whew. Just wanted to make a few comments concerning:

DC Alfa club.  Even if the current chapter prez has a preference to
roaring around track events in his 540i,  he has done quite a bit for
the local chapter for the past two years, and does own and is
currently restoring a quite rare 60's Alfa.  If people don't wish to
attend meetings at local Italian restaurants, then they can suggest
alternatives, but they miss the point, you have to make yourself known
to have any influence.  One or two visits to a chapter meet isn't
really enough.

Lancia Beta being the father of so much.  Well, not really.  Back in
the late Sixties, Fiat and Citroen both had a serious merger plan in
effect and were developing new cars together.  Fiat pulled the plug,
but,  somehow managed to retain the Citroen designed transaxle that
was fitted to the Fiat 128 and subsequent Beta cars, as well as a
great deal of design and development work on the Beta Berlina was
indeed Citroen.  We have the French to thank each time we shift a 164
and it doesn't grind second gear syncro.

Alfa 166.  Jeez,  in Italy, these new cars were like Chevvies, they
were all over the place.  It's a very good design except for one
critical area, the front end styling.  Such small headlamps in too
long and low dropping bodywork.  Why,  well, since Fiat did not award
the contract for body design to Pinin Farina to save his fees, and
since the 166 is produced at the same body plant as the slightly
earlier Lancia Kappa,  they get to share similar front fenders to save
costs.  Wonderful.  It really makes me think back to the Alfa 6 and
the 166 in no way matches the beauty of the 156.  BTW, CAR magazine
has a great comparison article on 166 in December issue.

Milano vs A4 vs 164.  We also had to decide which car to buy to
replace a defunct 200K plus Milano.  I had a choice of a decent gold
version Milano, the now Doug Sedon possessed WVA 164 or an Italian
import, a 1969 Lancia Fulvia Berlina GTE version.  After careful
comparison, we choose the Fulvia.  It will cost far less money to
operate than either Milano or 164, and is a real pleasure to drive as
well. That classic Lancia quality is still in a class all its own. I
feel even our esteemed Joel Hailey might back me up on that one.

Ciao,  Jay

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