1993 Fiat 126P

Yesterday we saw a diminutive Chevy Spark packed to the gills with five passengers and some merchandise from their shopping trip. In Michigan, where a Jeep Grand Cherokee is seen as reasonable transportation for a single adult, it's uncommon to see a sub-compact used to haul so many passengers.

And yet, it's not the Spark that is being misused - it's the Jeep, once reserved for Forest Service or similar duty, that is being used outside of its intended use. A car like today's Fiat 126P might come across as a city car, or fun hatchback to whip around in, but it was designed and utilized as a family car for millions in Europe. It's incredible how perspectives can change.

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1991 Alfa Romeo 164 S

The Alfa Romeo 164 lacks racing history. It isn't a sports car. It has considerable Swedish provenance. And yet, if we were to recommend a single Alfa Romeo model to someone seeking to experience the Alfa Romeo brand, it would be the 164 - the 164S in particular.

Competence in curves, great gear ratios in the 5-speed manual gearbox, and a fat power band that is rewarding no matter where the tach needle is pointed all combine for a sports sedan with undeniable Alfa Romeo DNA. The styling is of an era, but above all, it is intentional and deliberate like a true Alfa Romeo.

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Price Reduction: 2005 FERRARI 612 SCAGLIETTI MANUAL

We are running this post again now that the seller has dropped the asking price by $77,000! The price is still pretty high for a high-mileage 612 Scaglietti, but the rarity of the gated manual makes for a competitive market. Original post from when car was priced at $224,977 can be found here.

You almost have to pity Ferrari when it comes to development and manufacturing costs. A niche automaker such as Ferrari cannot spread the development and tooling costs for each new model over a large production run like GM can with the Corvette, for example. When GM decided to move the Corvette to a completely new mid-engine chassis, it did so with the prospect of 25-30,000 sales annually, a luxury not available to Ferrari.

Ferrari manages development costs by sharing powertrains and vehicle platforms. The 612 lead the way in aluminum front-ship V12 chassis development for the 599 GTB Fiorano (sadly, it didn't pass on its styling grace). And, the 575 Superamerica, a limited-production model, shared its similar tipo F 133 V12 with the Scaglietti, spreading out the development costs over the two models.

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2001 Lamborghini Diablo VT 6.0

The 2000s weren't a great time to spend on ostentatious displays of wealth. A hot single could lead to endorsements, sold-out tours, and piles of cash, but the cars and houses available to make a splash didn't have the quality on the inside to match the flash visible from the outside. The early Diablo would fall squarely within this category of lackluster quality propping up an impressive design.

Somewhere along the line, high-quality and durable goods became status symbols. Say what you will about the cost to repair, but a modern Rolls-Royce Ghost, designed and manufactured by BMW, must pass the same durability tests as a lowly, high-volume 1-series. The result is a pretty appealing product that can boast of innovative technology and first-class engineering as much as it can of exclusivity. And, just take a look at the sorts of mansions that rappers are building today. In the 2000s, 50 Cent basically had his home appointed with the same level of construction that you'd see in a bowling alley or chain restaurant - bespoke, but just vinyl stapled to particle board at the end of the day. Today, you see Drake building a Limestone mansion in Toronto; the contrast in quality is stark.

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1978 Alfa Romeo Spider Niki Lauda Edition

We are highly entertained by the impetus for the Niki Lauda Edition Alfa Romeo Spider. It isn't the result of a Constructers' Championship win or a Drivers' Championship win from Alfa or Lauda, which would be pretty reasonable. No, it's just a nod to Lauda, who joined the Brabham Alfa Romeo F1 team in 1978. A nice gesture, and a pretty comically low bar for slapping a name on a car.

According to the internet, 350 Niki Lauda Spiders were sold. Sure, that's pretty rare, but when Ferrari wins a Constructors' Championship, they just tack a plaque on the dash of all of their cars that year. We fail to see the significance of the Niki Lauda Edition to Alfa Romeo's brand history, and it seems to us that collectors are running out of special edition cars to prop up.

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1954 Fiat 500 C Topolino Giardiniera

Count us among those in the western world who take transportation for granted. It's tough not to when we can take our 390hp weekend car down the highway and get passed by people driving crew cab pickup trucks just to get lunch. Our society has really rallied around the crew cab pickup truck lease as the preferred mode of transportation, which makes it tough to imagine 1930s Italy, where aspirational transportation came in the form of something like the Fiat 500 Topolino.

Though small in footprint, these Topolinos are considered proper automobiles, as opposed to a form of cycle car. 16hp in the later cars meant that speeds of over 50ph were possible - about all that you'd really need before the extensive Autostrada system was complete. To us, it's amazing how these were probably viewed as favorably as a crew cab pickup is viewed today, and it's notable how much perspective can shift. We don't think the world should be driving Topolinos, but perhaps our 160hp Fiat 500 Abarth isn't so ridiculous, considering that it makes 10 times the power of its predecessor!

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1979 Alfa Romeo Alfetta GT 3.0L swap

Yesterday we featured a Maserati Coupe GT that the seller had transformed into a GranSport, and successfully so, if you were to ask us. Today's Alfetta GT (or is it a Sprint Veloce? discuss amongst yourselves in the comments please) is modified, but into what we could not tell you. All we can say is that we see what they were going for, and we think it's 80-90% there.

The stainless steel European bumpers look excellent on the dark-tan Giugiaro body. We like the Verde phone dials too, and the conversion to 5-lug hubs means that all of the GTV-6 wheel offerings are available as alternatives. A 3.0L Alfa V6 in stock form will make for effortless passing that is just not in the cards for the stock SPICA-fueled 2.0L.

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2006 Maserati Coupe GT

We are currently at work on a VW Rabbit pickup with a GTI engine and transmission swap. If VW had offered our favorite body configuration with the top-spec gasoline engine and close-ratio 5-spd transmission, they could have saved us some trouble. But, automakers can't always make a business case for the specific configuration of their offerings that we would enjoy most.

The seller of this Maserati Coupe GT encountered a similar situation: the GranSport is only available with paddle-shifter manual transmission, and clearly the seller prefers to drive a car with a manual transmission. The seller has grafted the GranSport body modifications onto this Coupe and has upfitted the interior with the GranSport goods as well.

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1960 Alfa Romeo Giulietta Sprint Speciale

Based on the photographs of this car, we could make a number of assumptions. One possibility is that the photos - incomplete and basically the same view but with the camera tilting with each photo - indicate an older seller, who likely bought the car new or when they were cheap. Looking at the Matta in the background, and considering how packed the garage is with Alfa parts, it's also possible that the seller is an enthusiast reluctant to sell, and has put forth the minimum viable effort to say that they have listed one of their many Alfas for sale.

In any case, the Sprint Speciale is an interesting offering on the Giulia chassis. The bodywork, inspired by the Alfa Romeo B.A.T. concepts, was unique to the Sprint Speciale, distinguishing it from the Giuliettas in both appearance and aerodynamic efficiency. A drag coefficient of only 0.29 meant that the 116bhp Sprint Speciale could reach an impressive 125mph.

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1988 Alfa Romeo Milano with 67 GTV Body

"The best of both worlds," the seller states, referring to the combination of the torsion beam independent suspension front, DeDion axle rear transaxle chassis. We don't disagree, but we ourselves haven't chopped a GTV in half either.

We've seen a number of Alfetta GTVs - and the cooler Alfetta Sport Sedans - with Milano Verde 3.0L Busso V6 swaps. Those always seemed wild to us, merging the era of the early transaxle cars with the later V6 offering. Today's Milano skips a few steps and decades in its combination of the seller's favorite Alfa Romeo offerings. A shower thought before, presently a reality.

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