Sent in by a UK AlfaOwner
Hi guys,

We spoke briefly at National Alfa day, when you took some pictures of my GTV6 and I promised you some further details about the car, here they are.

The car is an 83 model, originally with the mark 1½ tan interior & in black paint. I’ve had it since 91, when it was still totally standard. Since then lots of modifications and improvements have taken place…. In no particular order they are:
Body – stripped to a bare rolling chassis and given to “Greenspeed” in Wheeley (Essex). All rusty areas cut out and replaced by custom made heavy gauge galvanised steel panels. The affected areas included inner wings, all 4 jacking points, both front foot well floor front portions, scuttle panel corners, complete inner sills etc. The outer sills are new factory items & the spare wheel holder was replaced with one from a Ford Sierra of all things as it was same size & the original was like a colander. Gallons of Waxoil followed and paint is a custom metallic black, most similar to a factory Porsche colour which also colour codes the bumpers, skirts, mirrors etc. This was all completed 5 years ago & the finish still shames new factory Mercs!

Engine – Ex Alfa 75 3.0 V6, in totally standard form. It’s had a complete bottom end rebuild 3000 miles ago with all new pistons, liners, bearings etc after piston 5 melted when it ran lean pulling 6400 in 5th! Heads remain standard and have therefore done over 100k miles. Next job, when finances allow, is a full heads rebuild using considerably more “interesting” cams than the factory items among other things.

Suspension – Lowered 40mm rear & 50mm front, retaining original torsion bars front but using uprated rear springs. Koni sport adjustable shocks (the yellow ones) all round, an uprated 27mm front anti roll bar and polyurethane bushes on the caster control arms.

Geometry adjusted to suite and finished off with 7.5 x 16 alloys running 205/45 front and 225/45 rear Yokohama A539’s. Handling is now beautifully balanced with very little body roll and amazingly good ride quality despite all the changes. Quite why they didn’t leave the factory set up like this when new I suppose we’ll never know – the transformation is like night vs day compared to the standard car.

Other stuff of interest – When putting the whole thing back together after the body was sorted I changed the interior to the later Reccaro version in black. Whilst the 2.5 engine was being swapped for a 3.0, Alfa 75 power steering was fitted too. A wooden 4 spoke Momo Daytona wheel, decent hi fi finish and rear seatbelts (allowing baby seats) finish off the inside. Other small but useful things include 100w bulbs via relays for the main beams and slightly brighter bulbs for the dips, air horns (made in Italy of course!) & front fogs under the bumper.

Last but not least a full Ansa sport exhaust and no under bonnet sound proofing give the right sound with decent volume.

I love it to bits, it’s just soooooo much fun to drive and cheap to insure too.

Regards

Steve Rosser

Thank you for sending this into us Steve.