Crosspost from our personal blog, Blythbros.com
Maintaining a mental inventory of the local Alfa classifieds bears a certain risk. That risk came to light last winter, when a last-minute cancellation left me in Pennsylvania without a ride or flight back to Michigan. A simple problem, unless left to my internal problem-solving model. All models are wrong; some are useful. And, when I'm left in charge of calibrating the models, they point invariably to Alfa Romeo as the answer. Cognitive bias, to put it lightly. I was going to find a cheap Alfa to get me home.
Now, I have a history of rationalizing Alfa purchases. As my first Milano Verde sat engineless in my apartment garage, I convinced myself to bring home an Alfa 164LS daily driver. That 164 made it two weeks. A year later, that same Milano Verde burned down my garage, 3 other emerging European classics, and the majority of my backyard; I was back in a Verde within 45 days. Then there was the ran when parked Alfetta GTV shipped to my garage from California. And then the ran when parked GTV-6 we towed home from Indiana. Necessary, all of them.
