Erm, hello.

wuvvum · 13-05-2008

I'm wuvvum. I have quite an extensive and varied fleet of vehicles, which currently includes three Alfas - a 2000 166 TS in red, a 1999 166 3.0 Sportronic in metallic blue and a 1977 Alfasud 5M in a kind of orangey beige colour.

The Sud is my second - my first was a 1981 1.5 TI 3-door - and was bought, like all the others, from eBay. It was ridiculously cheap - something like £112 with a month and a half's MoT. The clutch had gone when I bought it (leak in a pipe) but a new copper pipe soon cured it and I now use it on high days and holidays. It has some rust, as do all Suds, but it was Ziebarted from new and has therefore survived surprisingly well (well, any 31-year-old Alfasud that's still an Alfasud, as opposed to baked bean tins or cheap Chinese scooters, has done pretty well).

The red 166 was bought on a bit of a whim - I was actually looking for a 156 at the time, but I spotted the 166 for sale on eBay at a price I couldn't refuse and with FSH, so bought it. It's been pretty good as 166's go - only electrical issues I've had have been a few bulbs and a blown relay in the climate control. Other than that it's been great. It's a little underpowered for my tastes, and a bit undergeared too being a 5-speeder, but it handles like a dream and I really enjoy driving it.

The 3-litre I bought last week - I spotted it quite by chance when browsing the spares section on eBay. I'd heared good things about the 3-litre V6's, so I bought it. I would have preferred a manual, but the Sportronic isn't a bad setup really - just it could really do with an extra gear. At £760 it was a bit more expensive than the TS, and it's also slightly older and higher mileage and has more issues (few dashboard lights not working, ICS needs code, one HID headlight out) and no history to speak of, but it seems in pretty good health, and it goes very well indeed in manual mode, and the V6 does make a wonderful noise when thrashed - almost as good as the Northstar V8 in my Cadillac STS. It doesn't handle as well as the TS though - it feels a bit nose heavy in comparison and wallows a bit more through bumpy corners. I still love driving it though, and I think it was a lot of car for the money.

So there you go. Hopefully this will now stop the reminder message popping up every time I log in. I'm sure I'll have plenty of technical queries to post, what with having two 166's.