Perche Alfa?

[Scott Fisher <sefisher@domain.elided>]

AlfaBill asks us:

>  So my question to all of you Alfa nuts, is twofold, 
>  1) Why did you buy it, and
>  2) why do you keep your Alfa?

Two questions -- same answer.

When I was about five or six years old, my dad's best friend owned a
Jaguar XK-120, which was then about twice as old as I was.  It was a
glorious and immaculate car, white with black leather, and the day he
took me for a ride in it, my life changed.  I can still, almost forty
years later, remember how that car smelled: hot oil sizzling off
aluminum, slightly musty hair-jute padding under the slick leather
seats, wool carpeting heated up by proximity to the exhaust, and the
faint coppery-salty aroma of old fear lingering in the shadows.  And the
sound!  Gears at my knee, twin cams whirring under that long, sensuous
bonnet (even at that age I responded to the visual cues of that car's
bonnet line), the exhaust ripping out the tailpipe as we motored along
under California oak trees dotting the golden hills.  

About that time, my family started going to sports car races at a number
of racetracks in northern California now defunct: Vaca Valley and Cotati
were the two I remember most vividly.  I loved watching the then-new
production sports cars roar up and down Vaca Valley's start-finish
straightaway: yes, the sedan races could be fun (there is nothing quite
like seeing a pack of almost identically prepared Mini Coopers dicing
for position in a hairpin leading onto the start-finish straight -- a
litter of puppies rounding the corner for dinner comes to mind), and in
those days it wasn't uncommon to see Formula cars that were
substantively similar to the GP cars of a few years ago, with cheaper
engines, such as the Lotus 18 that looked quite a bit like the car
Stirling Moss had won the Grand Prix de Monte Carlo in some years
before.

But it was the sports and GT cars that really summoned up my blood.  We
rarely got the Grand Marques at our little tracks, but I read about them
- -- Ferrari, Maserati, Alfa Romeo, the cars that competed at the top
level of international competition and at the great races of the world,
Le Mans and the Mille Miglia and the Targa Florio.  That's why it was
such I remember a Giulia TZ at one race; even better were the Giulia and
Giulietta Spiders, making the same musical scream as the TZ, racing in
their classes against Morgans and Porsches and Triumphs and M.G.s.  And
the parking lots were nearly as exciting as the tracks.

Some time around 1965, when I would have been about 9 or 10 years old, I
must have seen my first Alfa 105 coupe.  It staggered me, the same way
that XK-120 had a few years earlier.  Here it was, a clear connection
not only with the cars on the track but also with the cars of Fangio and
Nuvolari.  Yet this one had license plates, roll-up windows, and a back
seat large enough for me and my four-year-old brother to keep from
fighting on road trips.  Why didn't my dad get one of those instead of
his Ford Galaxie or even the exciting "competition orange" 1965 Mustang
2+2?  (My dad was a Ford Guy back then, and 1965-67 were good years for
Ford Guys in international competition, at least till the Alfa GTA won
the first SCCA Trans-America Championship against the much-vaunted
Mustangs, as well as everyone else.)

Through the early Seventies, the 105 (and later 115) Coupe stayed up at
the top of the list of My Favorite Cars.  While the list of my 10
favorite cars has changed some over the years, the top five have
remained relatively constant: 250 Lusso, 275 GTB/4, 246 Dino,
Aston-Martin DB4 (what's *that* doing here?  Oh, it's a Superleggera of
Touring body, that's why), and the step-front Alfa Romeo Giulia GT.  And
actually, except for the Dino, there's a strong resemblance between all
the other cars (and between the other Alfa that's in the next group of
five, the Giulietta Sprint, which looks much like a smaller DB4 with its
round headlights at the front of the fenders); obviously, that basic
shape stirs something deep within me.

Four and a half years ago I bought my 1300 GT Junior.  I didn't know it
at the time, but the 1300 was linking into another myth from my
childhood, which needs to be related separately.  But when everything
finally aligned so that I could purchase an Alfa, it was the one that
had always been on my list of the cars I thought were the most beautiful
in the world.  And I'll keep it until it's no longer on that list.  But
with three and a half decades of happy dreaming behind me, I doubt it'll
move off the list any time soon.  And given the prices of the other cars
on the list, acquiring one of them would require such a change in my
circumstances that I don't foresee having to sell the Alfa to get one of
the others; the rest of the cars sell for the price of houses in other
parts of the country, and yes I'd rather have a 250 Lusso than a
two-story condo.

As for why I bought the Spider, that's simple: life is too short not to
drive a convertible.  Until a couple of years ago, my convertibles were
British, the result of working my way up through the ranks from the
cheap and cheerful M.G. Midget that was my first sports car some fifteen
years ago; there are certain economies of knowledge (not to mention
tools) that go along with having cars from the same basic factory and
era, so the Midget was followed by a couple of MGBs (as well as a Mini,
a Frogeye Sprite that I bought and sold without ever getting it running,
and a very tatty but genuine Series I Lotus Cortina -- not a
convertible, but an... interesting car nevertheless).  

W. C. Fields said once, "There is nothing quite like sex.  There may be
better things, and there are certainly worse things, but there is
nothing exactly like it."  I feel the same way about heading down a
twisty road at the base of a canyon, sycamores and oaks lining the
sides, a little stream trickling at the base, and the purring of an
interesting engine, neither too large nor too weak, echoing off the
stones as the shadows of the trees flicker in and out of the driver's
vision, dappling fenders and forearms alike.  In a roadster, I feel that
I'm passing through life, not merely observing it; smells, temperature
changes, even humidity affect the senses at once, and whether I'm
pretending to be Nuvolari chasing Varzi through the Raticosa Pass, or
whether I'm pointing out to my young son the beauty of the undersides of
the trees that glide over our heads as we motor slowly along the streets
near home, I think of Fields' quote, and also of our friend the
Water-Rat from "The Wind In the Willows," and agree that there is
nothing in the world, absolutely nothing that is half so much worth
doing as simply messing about with open sports cars.

What I'm learning, to my great pleasure, is that the Spider is every bit
the Alfa that the GT Junior is.  And the top comes down, too.  

- --Scott Fisher
  1974 Spider Veloce
  1967 GT 1300 Junior

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End of alfa-digest V7 #954
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