PAST BLAST
JOHN BOWE TURNS BACK THE CLOCK WITH A GEM OF AN ALFA GTV 1750
When I was a youngster, Alfa Romeo was an aspirational marque and I admired people who drove them and really wanted one. My Dad had an Ampol service station and one of our customers was a local solicitor who had several Alfas including a Giulia Sprint GTV 1600. Whenever it was in for a service Dad used to take me to school in it – so I’ve always had a soft spot for them.
Alfa Romeo made cars for drivers not commuters and I’ve owned a number of them so I guess you could class me as an Alfisto. The first was a Giulia Super which was a basic four-door version of the 1600 105 Series, then I had a 1750 Berlina, another four-door I was fond off, followed by a couple of Alfettas and a Twin-Spark Alfa 75. But by the 80s, while they were still good cars – relatively speaking – Alfa Romeo’s reputation had degenerated, mostly because of terrible rust problems due to poor quality steel. In 1970 you
“IT’S BETTER KNOWN AS A 1750 GTV, EVEN THOUGH ITS ENGINE IS ACTUALLY 1778CC”
could also buy a BMW 2002, which was typically German-rock-solid on the road but I’d still rather drive a GTV any day. They were much more involving and handled better.
The 105 series Alfa Romeo was launched in 1963 with the twin-cam 1600cc Sprint GT. Subsequent models were fitted with bigger capacity engines with twin carburettors (except in the US where the last models got fuel injection). The model line ended with the 2000 GTV which was last made in 1976. The V in GTV stands for Veloce, Italian for fast and the racing variants were dubbed GTA (A for Alleggerita or lightened) and were special lightweight cars built by Autodelta, Alfa Romeo’s racing division.
I remember seeing the great Kevin Bartlett race a GTA at the Longford road course in Tasmania in 1966 or ’67. ‘KB’ and Frank Gardner raced Alfas for team owner Alec Mildren, who had the first Alfa Romeo dealership in NSW. Tim Schenken also raced a 2000 GTV at Bathurst in the old days of production car racing and John French, the Brisbane Alfa dealer, who won Bathurst with Dick Johnson in the Tru-Blu XD Falcon in 1981, raced them extensively too.
This car is a Series II 1750 GT Veloce, better known as a 1750 GTV, even though its engine is actually 1778cc. It belongs to my mate Chris who accidentally found it in a barn in a country town in Victoria when he went