I promise this isn’t going to turn into an Alfa site, but……
Greetings from Melbourne, town of my birth and home of the greatest football code EVER.
I arrived here this morning on an early flight and quickly made my way out to the leafy hillside suburb of Eltham, where a 1.7 litre 16 valve Alfo Romeo 33 was waiting for my inspection. A week before, my brother-in-law went to look the car over and came back with positive thoughts about it. I’d chatted several times on the phone with the owner and between my chats and my brother’s overview, I was feeling pretty confident.
That confidence took a dive when I arrived at the owner’s house at around 10 this morning, however. The car was in worse condition than I expected. The paint was a lot more faded and inconsistent than I thought, and the fact that we had to push it out of the driveway for a test drive didn’t exactly fill me with happiness.
Did I mention that today’s Friday the 13th yet???? I’m not superstitious at all, just sayin……
We got the car running, took it for a quick spin and then it came to decision time. The car drove well enough but I was quite disappointed with the appearance.
As a result, I haggled hard. We had aleady saetlled on a price over the phone earlier in the week, but after finally seeing the car I was quite prepared to walk away unless I got a better deal. We sorted out a new battery and after negotiating another $500 off the price today, I’ve ended up getting the car for around 70% of the owner’s original asking price.
So, the car?
- The seats are better than an Alfasud or a Sprint, but they’re still terrible when you’re used to Saab seats.
The brakes aren’t very good.
I don’t think the heater’s very effective and I’m sure the air conditioning is just dead weight.
It’s as ugly as a bashed crab from the front though it has a nice profile and stance.
The battery was dead and we had to fit a new one.
I’ve already mentioned the paint. A good cut and polish will bring most of it into line, but the rear spoiler and wing mirrors might be in for a color change one day.
They’re the bad parts and I’ll get to some more about them in a moment. In summary, the car looks quite second-hand.
The good news is that I didn’t buy this car for comfort, looks or features. This car was purchased first and foremost as a club car for messing around and maybe doing some basic events like motorkhanas etc, and for that purpose, it’s absolutely brilliant.
It’s a completely dfferent drive than my Saab 900. This has a 16 valve boxer engine that loves to rev. The power band is just over 3500 revs and that’s where the engine sings and the car feels its best. I haven’t had the chance to drive it too much yet, but I already love it.
I’ve got an ECU chip on its way as well as the usual stage 1 type mods (airflow and exhaust). The car already feels plenty quick as it is. These mods will increase the output by around 10-15% and that should make it an absolute hoot to drive.
——
Alfa 33 vs Saab 900.
My Saab 900 is five years older than this Alfa and it’s undeniably better in just about every way. It’s amazing how well it compares, actually. Five years isn’t too long in automotive terms, but Alfa should have been able to come up with something more comparable than this. The fact that this is five years younger and yet it was their first 16 valve four cylinder should tell you plenty about how far behind it was.
The comfort, ride, equipment and overtaking performance of the 900 are all streets ahead. Do I even need to mention the safety of the 900 and the fact that I feel like a crash-test-dummy-waiting-to-happen in the Alfa? The body of the 900, the interior materials - everything about the 900 is at a higher level.
But don’t let that fool you into thinking that the Alfa is without any charms. It may or may not be quick, but it feels quick. It’s nimble. It’s got character coming out of it’s ears. It has heaps of grip and very low center of gravity. The engine note is quite sweet and it urges you to really drive it. I could get into a lot of trouble in this car.
I’m one very happy camper. I got the car that I want for the purpose that I want - and I got to take some of the workload off my 900. A win-win, as long as I can afford to keep and maintain them both.
As I said, this isn’t going to turn into an Alfa site. I’ll post as little about it as possible, but I thought it appropriate to introduce the car into the extended family.
——
Tomorrow I check all the fluids and pressures, then put the car on the ferry for the overnight trip back to Tassie. It should be a fun drive.
-
18 responses so far ↓
1 robin m
// Jun 13, 2008 at 10:52 pm
Well done Swade, T-cut is great stuff, drive carefully.
2 lance
// Jun 13, 2008 at 11:01 pm
B….. hell mate- you know how to live on the edge!
Have you checked the tracking - tyres will fall away at the shoulders if the tracking is out -even a speed hump could do it to an Alfa.Especially with the drive shafts being mad of soft stuff!
Enjoy it Swade, it won’t last forever you know!
Oh and does the exhaust RASP?
Lance
3 Danni
// Jun 13, 2008 at 11:17 pm
As long as you do not introduce the 33 here, I have no qualms with it. I had the 1985 twin-carb unit - lots of fun but once the gremlins started, I wanted to doze it with CO2. Enjoy what the alfisti wanted to get rid of as it was considered not to be a genuine Alfa Romeo coming from the association with Fiat. That 1.7l 4-pot high revving powerplant must be a gem to drive. I remember starting mine every morning early and just blipping the throttle to hear the crackle of that unit - to the chagrin of my next door neighbor in his Bavaria Motorwerke 4-pot.
4 wilfried
// Jun 14, 2008 at 12:56 am
I hope you’ve got more luck with your Alfa than I did with my Italian Esspresso-machine. Design, taste, pressure (in case of the espresso-machine) all screamed in the beginning the promising italian lifestyle.
Now it leaks, pressure isn’t what it ment to be and the damn thing even starts getting rusty.
But the espresso is still quite good.
I would be loving driving an Alfa, but when I think of my espresso-experience, I suddenly hesitate.
On the other hand, since driving the 9-5, the 1,9 TiD never let me down. I suspect some Trolls cured out the milanese illness.
But why a 33? Hasn’t got a spider, a gtv, a giulia or an alfetta more pedrigree?
5 NineTwoX
// Jun 14, 2008 at 2:44 am
Grats on the purchase!
Maybe after you have your fun with this boxer engine, perhaps it’s time to move to a Porsche?
6 ctm
// Jun 14, 2008 at 4:08 am
Good luck with the Alfa, Swade!
BTW, do you know which insurance company you gonna use for it?
7 PGAero
// Jun 14, 2008 at 4:46 am
Congrats Swade! Enjoy the new ride.
~P
8 CWilson
// Jun 14, 2008 at 4:52 am
Ah, Saab and Alfa ownership at the same time! Excellent combination. Obviously there will be a lot of nay-sayers but them most of them have never owned an Alfa before. Yeah, Alfa’s are certainly not the best made cars but there is just something about them that is intoxicating. Saab’s come with safety as a standard feature, Alfa’s come with character. Just be prepared that you may have to pull over to pick up some of the “character” from the side of the road when it falls of. But just do as all Alfa drivers do in that situation: if the car still runs (and the almost always do when something falls off), just throw the part away, you obviously didn’t need it!
Enjoy the Alfa!
9 eggsngrits
// Jun 14, 2008 at 5:26 am
Well, I’m feeling pretty good about myself because I called it! If you see my comments on the earlier post, you’ll notice that I commented that the paint was uneven and needed some work.
10 swade
// Jun 14, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Cwilson - you’re right. Any parts that fall off were just excess weight.
Eggs - red italian paint fading? You were shooting fish in a barrel with that one cobber, but you were dead-on. The rear spoiler and the side mirrors are about three shades darker than around 90% of the rest of the car. It’s a mish-mash of reds, kinda like a lipstick color chart.
11 eggsngrits
// Jun 14, 2008 at 10:19 pm
Swade: You’re right. The Euro red only lasts about 20 minutes in either the southern US or Oz. Easy call.
12 Robin Capper
// Jun 15, 2008 at 10:03 am
The only Alfa boxer I’ve ever driven was an elderly AlfaSud. Athough the car was a bit of a rust ravaged wreck the engine was a gem.
Are the brakes weak, worn or just the usual Italian over-servoed feel? When I jump from my old Uno to the newer Bravo the first few stops are rather abrupt as the newer car has much less pedal travel!
Have fun with your new Italian mistress!
13 Swade
// Jun 15, 2008 at 1:25 pm
The brakes are terrible, Robin. It’s strange that make something the goes so well and stops so poorly. Hopefully there’s a simple enough solution for getting a better feel.
14 NineTwoX
// Jun 15, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Maybe you need to replace your brake lines with some stainless steel braided brake lines? Might take the squishyness out of them. Also, when you do that upgrade, you can change out the pads/fluid to some performance ones.
15 Anthony
// Jun 16, 2008 at 9:05 am
Hi Swade,
Congrats on the 33. I must pop along to a CMI day sometime and have a look.
You missed out on the Recaros then? The good news is that the mounts in a 33 have Recaro spacing, so it’s easy to fit decent seats.
I hope you got the right battery - one that has a tube to vent outside the double firewall compartment thing. Otherwise your electrics are toast. The other thing to do is get some after market tie rods so you can get the toe in right (the factory ones can only be adjusted by a whole turn at a time) and obviously fit some decent struts (Koni yellows dialled up stiff help keep the front down).
Have fun with it, I certainly enjoyed mine when I had it and had 5 trouble-free years with it.
cheers,
Anthony
16 Swade
// Jun 16, 2008 at 9:25 am
Hmmmm. I wish I’d known that battery thing a few days ago, Anthony. Will check it out. I think it’ll be a few weeks/months before i’ve got it to spec for CMI events, but I definitely want to get to a few in the near term just to check them out. They have one at Symmons in a few weeks time that I’d love to do, but I’ll be tied up for the day, unfortunately.
17 Anthony
// Jun 16, 2008 at 2:17 pm
Oops, sorry
(Glad to see you still on deck here. Been away and haven’t caught up yet.)
18 Swade
// Jun 16, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Don’t worry about the ‘oops’. There was no way of knowing it’d need to be done. I just wish I’d had that knowledge, that’s all.