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October is generally the warmest month here by the Bay, so that's when you get the big car shows on the island. On Saturday, Park Street was taken over by hundreds of chromium-dipped chariots ; the following day, a horde of Ferraris, Fiats, Lancias, Alfas, and the like swarmed across the bridges and set up shop on the soccer field of the junior high school at which I was forced to learn " The Hustle " in P.E. class, circa 1979. Sadly, the LeMons-veteran Ecurie Ecrappe Alfa wasn't there, but the presence of such jewels as a Fiat 2100 wagon, supercharged Lancia Scorpion, and SEAT 850 compensated somewhat. Jump, jump, and see all the purty cars! galleryPost('LHSItalianShowTop', 6, 'All Italian Car And Motorcycle Show Part 1'); galleryPost('LHSItalianShow2', 50, 'All Italian Car And Motorcycle Show Part 1'); galleryPost('LHSItalianShow3', 27, 'All Italian Car And Motorcycle Show Part 1');
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After Seatbelt123 and the rest of the Quattro Libre team piloted their Audi 4000 to a respectable 23rd place at the 24 Hours of LeMons South event last weekend, they decided to upgrade to some fine Italian steel for their next race. What better choice than the Alfa Romeo Milano , with its insanely complicated and fragile innovative De Dion tube/rear-transaxle drivetrain and neurotic bulletproof Italian V6? And- can you believe it?- it turns out you can get two of 'em for under 300 bucks! What could go wrong? Look out, Tunachuckers , you've got serious competition for the Index of Effluency trophy! galleryPost('EffluencyMilanos', 6, 'Two Alfa Romeo Milanos For 299 Bucks'); [eBay Motors]
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Since the backlog of DOTS Bonus Edition photos is still pretty large, we're going to have a second consecutive DOTS-O-Rama Sunday. Last week we saw cars photographed by Jalopnik readers in various locations in California, and today we're going to go north of the border and look at cars from the land of the Bricklin SV-1 and the Hanson Brothers . First up is this Alfa 164 shot by Roots_Rocker_Matt in Hamilton, Ontario. galleryPost('DOTSBEHamiltonAlfa', 5, 'Alfa 164 Down On The Ontario Street');
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Italian cars have been mighty rare in this series, so I was pleased to run across this '85 Alfa Romeo Graduate parked in the island's East End. I see this car moving under its own power on a regular basis, so it's a genuine driver (not just someone's hopeless Hell Project). We've seen an '89 Graduate already in this series, but the 1985 was the first year for the "entry-level" version of the Alfa Romeo Spider and that makes this example seem more significant. You didn't get alloy wheels or luxury goodies when you bought a Graduate in '85, but you did get a real Italian sports car for just $14,395 (two grand more than the V6-powered Fiero GT ). Which would you buy? It's in pretty decent shape for a street-parked 23-year-old Italian commuter car. Good enough shape to win our first-ever Favorite Italian DOTS car poll? Let's find out! I thought of including the Pininfarina-styled Datsun 411 and MGB-GT in the choices, but decided against it....
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Now that we're in an 80s mood , let's keep our Members Only jackets and Vuarnet shades on for one more day! By 1989, Alfa Romeos just weren't flying off the showroom floors (though we can assume they were limping into the dealerships' service bays). In what appears to have been a desperation move, the Alfa marketing wizards decided to capitalize on that really popular Dustin Hoffman movie , swapping out the "Spider" emblems for "Graduate" ones on their North American cars. After all, while the Alfa in the film runs out of gas, it doesn't actually experience any mechanical problems. Sadly, the rebranding move wasn't so successful, and Alfa Romeo retreated- temporarily- from North America just a few years later. I wish I could find more street-parked old Italian cars on the island, but (other than the '66 Lancia ) all we've got is a few Graduates. I've seen some more exotic Italian machinery roaring around the island's streets, but...
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