Two Alfas, again

[Scott Fisher <sfisher71@domain.elided>]

The main reason I was at Andrew's house last Sunday
(if you've already read that posting), at least as far
as I was concerned, was to pick up my new Alfa: the
'73 (or '74) Berlina I had bought from him a few weeks
previously.

That story: I was in the Bay Area at the end of
February, staying here through the first weekend in
March, for a party/concert with my wife, hosted and
performed by our old friends from Sunnyvale.  She was
to come down on the 28th with the family and with
another friend from the Portland area, so I arranged
to come down a few days earlier; since the weather was
slated to be perfect all the way down, I drove the '74
Spider.  (More than once, while driving back from work
at the end of the day, 70 degree weather ruffling the
hairs on my arms as I motored through early dusk with
the top down, I thought that as much as I like
telecommuting, there ARE advantages to getting to
drive to work and back each day.)

While I was here, Andrew Watry posted an ad for a '73
Berlina for sale.  I originally forwarded the link to
Jeff, who immediately engaged me to go look at it that
Saturday, and instructed me to potentially buy it for
him if I didn't want it myself.  In conversation with
Andrew, it came out that Joe Cantrell was debating
whether to simply wire the money to him and arrange to
get the car later; since Joe and Jeff are two of my
best friends in Portland, I decided that the better
part of valor was complete disclosure, so after
chatting with Joe I considered myself as representing
a cartel of Berlina purchasers from the Northwest and
went out to see Andrew's car, fully expecting to buy
it for Jeff or maybe for Joe, and in the meanwhile
figuring it would be fun to drive a Berlina and see
what they're like.

Well, Saturday arrived.  I'd pretty much talked myself
out of buying the car unless something spoke to me. 
In short, it did.  The car started on the first turn
of the key, the engine ran VERY smoothly -- perhaps
better than my '74 Spider, though it could be just the
absence of body shake -- and as I drove a few blocks
the shifter began to loosen up, and shifting into
second and even first gear while on the move became
easy and pleasant, as it should be.

The car -- all I can say is, the car liked me.  It's
important to like a car, but after decades of fooling
around with British, Italian and (ahem) other sports
cars, I've come to the conclusion that it's far MORE
important that the car like me.  This one did; little
things started to work better as I drove it, putting a
bit of warmth and use back into a car that had sat for
too long unappreciated.  (Perhaps even more important:
the Spider didn't exhibit any telltale signs of
jealousy at the impending Berlina purchase, but
continued to behave perfectly for the rest of the trip
and the long drive home.)  

So I wrote Andrew a check, he agreed to hold the car
in his driveway till I came down to get it a couple
weeks later, and I broke the bad news to Jeff that he
wasn't going to get this Berlina after all.  (He's
consoled himself by saying that he would really rather
hold out for a Giulia; me, there's something about the
more subtle styling of the 1750/2000 Berlina that's
always appealed in an understated way, and this one's
in my favorite colors: burgundy and light tan.)

So after dropping Henrik's GTV6 off, I picked up the
keys and title to the Berlina, we loaded the good
interior into Jeff's trailer, and then Jeff and I went
off to our respective lodging here in the Bay Area. 
The plan is to meet up on Thursday, put the Berlina
back into the same trailer that we used to bring
Henrik's GTV6 down on Sunday, and trailer the Berlina
home -- avoiding a repeat of the unhappy attempt to
drive the '67 GT Junior to Portland a year ago.

What the car is like... deserves its own message, a
little later.  

But I'm a multiple-Alfa owner again, after six months.
 There is no cure -- but there is treatment.

--Scott Fisher
  Tualatin, Oregon
.
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http://movies.yahoo.com/

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