In response to AlfaBill...

[Robin Boyar <rboyar@domain.elided>]

>  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?

The simple explanation is that I wanted a Spider ever since I was a kid, and
the eve of my 30th birthday was a big enough event to rationalize the
purchase :-)

However, a year after purchase, there's more to the answer.  I think that we
often apply a ROI model to most big decisions. Certainly, that was my
rationale when I purchased my Saab- I wanted a safe, reliable, relatively
unique car that would last a long time with minimal expenditures.

To an extent, I can apply this model towards my Spider (those groovy looks,
the sound of her engine, the way she handles, and how she never fails to put
a smile on my face).  But after countless bills and hardly a month that she
doesn't visit the mechanic, as well a calculation of how much money I would
have if I would have invested the initial cost of the car in Internet
stocks,  this analysis wears thin.  And so, I've realized that I do all of
this because I want to (and I've yet to have a spouse that tells me we need
to spend the money on something more important, like a college fund :-)

To me, the Alfa is symbolic of those things that you do because you love
them, not because of some internal cost benefit analysis.  And after all,
isn't that what life is all about?  

Robin

'67 Duetto (worth more than 20,000 shares of aol?)
'92 Saab 900 (well loved, too)

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