Scott F., happy yanks, and the Milano lives again!

[PeteLaurel@domain.elided]

Okay, Ted's story (and the wholly s#$&) comment brought me back from lurking. 
And Scott F. is right that we have much to be thankful for. I posted a few 
weeks ago about what to do with our '87 Platinum. After some great emails 
from you out there, and a heart to heart with my wife, we're going to keep 
the car a while longer.

Her car is about to die (a 1990 Mitsubishi Galant GSX with 170k miles), so we 
were looking at two car purchases potentially. We're keeping the Platinum and 
she'll be getting a replacement. That Mitsubishi has been the bane of my 
life, and I'll be happy to be rid of it. We bought it new and I maintained it 
like an Alfa, which means I was very paranoid about preventative maintenance. 

We've spent about $4K in repairs on the Galant, and most of that was a clutch 
and front CV joints (it is AWD) at about 155K miles. It makes ANY expense on 
the Alfas look huge. I'm trying to persuade my wife to but an NSU R80, a 1971 
Chevy Vega, or some other such atrocity to even out the maintenance bills. 
Any other snappy car ideas?

Back to the Milano. I don't know about the transaxle rebuild. I am putting it 
off for now, but I have this huge problem with Alfas in that I want them near 
perfect in the mechanical sense. Growing up in a town that had a big GM plant 
and a Ford plant next door, I never wanted my Alfa to sit on the side of the 
road. I don't care what it looks like, but DON'T BREAK DOWN! So I still dream 
of sticking a 3.0 in the car, doing the transaxle, and putting new wheels on 
it. I am terminal with Alfa-itis.

Anyway, I've been driving the GTV these past few weeks. Highway 280 in the 
fall is great here in California. Amazingly I can cruise a corrected 90mph in 
that 30 year old car for quite a while. So it is not such a bad thing to do 
while getting the Milano fit again.

When I was in Japan I saw one Alfa. It was a 155 with OZ wheels at the 
convention center. Heaven knows how much the owner paid to get that car into 
the country. I took it as a good sign! Hope the yanks had a great 
Thanksgiving.

Cheers,
Peter Lundquist
Burlingame, CA
1969 GTV (the French Blue one)
1987 Platinum

------------------------------