It’s not every day you get to visit a rockstar’s home, especially one belonging to Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason. Yet here I am, standing in a makeshift car park in a field in front of his leafy Cotswold abode. Amid all the rare metal on display, it was this 1973 Alfa Romeo Giulia Super that caught my eye.
You see, I’m very lucky that with this so-called ‘job’ I get to see a lot of cars, and I think that’s shifted my perspective slightly on what I find interesting in a car. A younger version of me would have gone head over heels for a Lamborghini. These days, it’s the unique, characterful cars with a story to tell that really tickle my palate.
Which brings me to this little Italian saloon. I managed to take precisely two photos of it before a stranger appeared and struck up a conversation with me. This stranger turned out to be a lovely chap called Ian, who let me poke around the tan interior. Once I told him I write about cars on the internet, he shared an interesting story about the car and how it ended up in its current, frankly mint, condition.
Ian said it is an Italian import, paid for by his wedding savings, much to his fiancée’s then dismay, until she saw it and instantly fell for its cheeky, characterful charm. It comes in its original paint, which still looks fantastic 52 years on, bar the odd age related mark. Ian also told me that it’s a 105 series Alfa, made from 1963 until 1977, which is widely regarded as Alfa Romeo’s sweet spot. Interestingly, it was one of the first production cars to be designed in a wind tunnel and, as a result, was more aerodynamically efficient than a 911 of the same period.
Ian was telling me that he’s added tasteful performance upgrades to his Italian Stallion, such as a stainless steel sports exhaust and a billet aluminium steering box with rose jointed track rods, a setup that ensures ultra direct steering response and virtually no play.
But what was the crème de la crème for me was that he told me he worked at Alfaholics, a renowned UK specialist in classic Alfa Romeo 105 series models. As a result, he’s added their Stage 3 suspension setup, the top tier rebuild package for the 105 series Alfa Romeo, giving this little Italian saloon the handling of a modern vehicle. I did some research and apparently Alfaholics creates a flagship model called the GTA-R, which can fetch up to half a million pounds. You could buy a lot of pasta for that!
Some images courtesy of @giuliasuper1.3 on Instagram