SHERBURN-IN-ELMET, England — Alfa Romeo took a break from selling recent cars in the USA after 1995, when the ultimate Spider Veloces and 164s were sold here. That beat Fiat and Lancia (each of which departed after 1982), but still deprived us of the Alfa 164’s handsome successor: the 166. The best method to find discarded 166s is to cross the Atlantic, so that is what I did recently.
I have been spending a whole lot of time in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg in recent times, being the descendant of immigrants from that tiny but proud nation, and there are still quite just a few 166s prowling the streets of Luxembourg City. Despite their fame for unreliability and horrifically rapid depreciation, the 166 looks so good that I remain tempted to ship one home. The facelifted model within the photo above had its debut as a 2003 model and thus won’t be legal in the USA until 2028, however the first-year ’99s shouldn’t raise any U.S. Customs eyebrows whenever you pick one up at your local port.
I used to be hoping to shoot loads of interesting Italian iron during my trip to the scrapyards of Yorkshire in January, so I headed over to Sherburn Motor Spares, situated on the very land in Sherburn-in-Elmet where the famous Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers of Bismarck-crippling fame were built. This yard specialises in Italian and French cars; it’s what we would call a dismantler in the USA, so customers aren’t allowed to drag their very own parts unless they get permission beforehand.
There is a nice little breakfast joint situated just out front, which was welcome on a below-freezing Yorkshire morning, and the staff are very friendly (though a bit obscure if you happen to come from anywhere else within the English-speaking world). Inside, you will find loads of Alfa Romeos, Fiats, Peugeots, Citroëns, Renaults and even just a few Toyota MR2s; I spotted an especially rare Alfa Romeo Brera S, which was certainly one of a mere 500 built.
Cars rust quickly and inspections are rigorous in England, so I didn’t see many machines built prior to our current century. Well back in certainly one of the rows, nevertheless, was this first-year 166 done up in some sort of racing livery.
The cars were packed and stacked so closely that I wasn’t in a position to get great photos of this automobile, but Sherburn Motor Spares has included some pre-stacking photos of their eBay store. Its MOT history shows that it last passed inspection in 2015 with 150,191 miles on the clock, and that it failed several times before then because of electrical problems and excessive emissions.
This automobile participated in the Screwball Rally, presumably while it was still registered. The Screwball appears to be very similar in spirit to its American counterparts reminiscent of the Lemons Rally, the Rocky Mountain Rambler 500 and the Gambler 500. I could have to go over there, buy a sub-£1000 MG TF and do that rally.
I am unable to find much evidence of this team’s participation within the rally, aside from a single Flickr photo, but I’m sure the experience of driving a 15-or-so-year-old Alfa luxury saloon through France and Italy was each comfortable and character-building.
The team appears to have been sponsored by a repair shop in Leeds that works on Alfa Romeos, Fiats, Abarths and… Jeeps?
This automobile had the three.0-liter quad-cam V6 under its bonnet, rated at 223 horsepower and 203 pound-feet. It has the automated transmission, so top speed was 147 mph as a substitute of the 5-speed manual’s 151 mph.
Drive it from St. Petersburg to Berlin on a spy mission. As one does.
This Article First Appeared At www.autoblog.com
