Alfa Romeo GTV: The car both you and your dad want

"Ah..! A GTV6. A friend of mine used to drive one of those", says a middle-aged bloke wandering past while I'm taking photos of the red Alfa. He's the third so far. It's just one of those cars that stir up memories of golden days and long lost youth. This particular car probably does the trick better than most, being a pristine example of the kind. Most of these rusted away in the late 80s and early 90s, due to the thin and dodgy sheets of metal known to Italian cars of the time. But this has soldiered on. Partly due to careful owners storing it in dry places and an extremely low mileage.

You could get the GTV with a broad range of powerplants, giving it widely different characteristics depending on engine size and output. All of them had more than decent punch, though. Even the smallest one with a measly 1,6 litres churns out an impressive 110 horsepower. These are respectable figures today, but back in 1976 when the engine was launched it was simply staggering. The handling-nutters usually went for the 2-litre 130 horsepower option, giving the car a good power-to-weight ratio as well as perfect weight distribution. But the impressive handling characteristics weren't all due to the lightweight engine. A clever de Dion rear transaxle layout (transmission mounted on the axle itself and brake discs located inwards close to the centre differential) completed the task nicely.

The most sought-after GTV isn't the 2-litre, though. Regardless of the fact that it makes a mess of the weight distribution due to a larger volume and therefore added weight, the glorious V6 engine is the one you want. There is simply no noise made by any car this side of a Ferrari V8 that comes even close to the roar of an old-school Alfa V6. At the time the engine had a 2,5-litre displacement, never officially being given the full 3-litre of the later 75-model. With one curious exception. A small number of GTV6 3,0s were built in South Africa, 200 in fact, for racing homologation. In other words, this exclusive group of Alfas were the first to ever use the fantastic 3-litre V6.

Even though it's not a genuine South African model, the GTV featured here has the same engine, borrowed from a 75. Together with a set of rare Grand Prix wheels, this car is just right in my book. The leather interior isn't half bad, either.

The car has been thoroughly waxed and polished on the outside. The interior on the other hand hasn't been touched. This goes to show that if it's one thing the Italians know how to make, it's leather interiors.

So, it's not an original in any way. The wheels are wrong, the steering wheel is wrong and the engine is wrong. Still, having mixed and matched from other GTV models, it's a collection of the best bits of the entire model range. And that just makes it better than the original.