1966 Alfa Romeo Giulia GTC

By the time you made this car into a driver, you’d be so far underwater that Hurricane Isabel would seem like a spring shower

As described by the seller on eBay Motors: This 1966 Giulia GTC is a true rarity, one of only 25 imported into the U.S. in 1966, and one of only 1,000 produced. Bertone designed this classic cabriolet, powered by a 1,570-cc, DOHC four-cylinder engine, with maximum power of 105 hp at 6,000 rpm. Top speed is 112 mph.
The GTC is much more highly valued than the fixed-head Giulia Sprint or Junior, and is listed in Classic & Sportscar 1996-1997 Classic Car Buyers Guide as valued at £9,000 (or about $16,000) in “basket case” condition. This example is much, much better than a basket case.
The vehicle is nearly complete, with only a small piece of trim missing. The door handles and windshield wipers have been stashed in the trunk. The body and frame of the car are in excellent condition. According to the owner, there is very little, to almost no rust on the frame. The body also has virtually no rust. The traditional tough spots on an Alfa, such as the rocker panels, have no sign of rust. The car is painted entirely in gray primer.
The engine was inspected and found to only have 30,000 original miles. It has not been started since about 1994, and will need a set of carburetor kits in order to get it running. It may even need to be flushed, or at the worst rebuilt. The disc brakes will also need work. The tires are dry-rotted and flat, and it is currently sitting on rollers. The convertible top frame is in serviceable condition, however the cloth top itself will need to be replaced. This car has never been hit, the frame is straight and the body has had very little work done to it.
This car was driven sparingly during the 1980s but has not had contact with a road in a decade. It has been stored in a bone-dry storage garage in the interim, though Hurricane Isabel caused the water to rise in our area (Maryland) and the garage where this classic car has been kept since 1982 was briefly flooded for about an hour.

{analysis} This 1966 Alfa Romeo Giulia GTC sold for $12,321.20 on eBay Motors on November 2, 2004.
The GTC had its genesis when Bertone tried to interest Alfa in an open version of the “cast-iron” 2000 Sprint coupe. This was a four-place convertible that was shown in 1960, but Alfa chose not to produce it, instead opting for a convertible version of the higher volume Giulia Sprint. This Bertone-designed coupe was launched in 1963 and quickly established itself as a new benchmark in small performance cars (see Alfa Romeo Profile, August 2004). Surprisingly, when it came to actually building the cut-coupe GTC, another Italian design house, Carrozzeria Touring, did both the engineering and construction.
Considerable strengthening was carried out to make up for the loss of the coupe’s roof and C pillars. This included extra bracing in the foot wells behind the front wheel arches, a reinforced floor pan, and thicker door frames and sills. In addition, the rear seat backrest was narrowed to accommodate the lowered soft top, which disappeared completely behind the seats. This led to reduced shoulder room in the back seat and a smaller trunk, though Alfa did enlarge the trunk lid. The GTC also acquired roll-down rear quarter windows in the process.
In spite of Touring’s best efforts, contemporary testers found that there was a fair amount of scuttle shake in the GTC-not the best thing for a car whose performance reputation was built on its handling and tossability. Nevertheless, the Giulia GTC still retained much of the dynamic character of its sibling, and its free-revving DOHC four and superb five-speed gearbox made it a joy to drive. The GTC was marketed for just two years, 1965 and 1966, and discontinued when the Pininfarina-designed Duetto Spider was brought to market in late 1966.
Touring built the Giulia GTC to a good standard, but rust is even more of a plague in these cars than in the coupes, due to the vulnerability of the additional structural bracing. Seals between the rear edge of the convertible top and the body can fail, allowing water to find its way into the top well and sills. This can exacerbate issues with corrosion that even coupes have in the double-skinned rocker panels, trunk floor and floor under the pedal box. It is equally important to check the drain holes in the bottoms of the doors.
As on any convertible, interior trim in a GTC can take a beating due to exposure. Most of the interior pieces are available, except for the smaller rear seat and rear side panels, which are unique to the cabriolet. Replacements for the soft top are available from specialists, but are a very expensive item as the market is obviously tiny.
This brings us to the 1966 Giulia GTC pictured here. Where to even begin? Let’s start with the seller. This is another case of a car being sold “on behalf” of the owner, which is seldom a good thing. That said, there were a number of questions and answers that followed the listing and provided additional information about the car. Of course, the photos are worth all the description in the world, confirming that the car has been idle for more than twenty years.
If that’s not bad enough, photos of this GTC from “circa 1982” seem to show the car already in primer, with rather suspect looking sills. Other photos showed the underside of the car, but mainly the suspension (which revealed a great deal of surface rust on the shocks, springs, and brake rotors, as well as corrosion on the alloy differential), but there were no detailed shots of the all-important sills.
The interior shots reveal rusted pedal arms as well as rust on the turn signal switch and mold on the front kick panels. This is important to note, as these panels cover the vital front chassis reinforcements-and if they are damp enough to grow mold, what lies underneath could be truly scary. Add in the confusing claims of a car kept in a “bone dry storage garage” that was also “briefly flooded,” and I would be suspicious that this car is one step removed from a pile of iron oxide.
Even if the total effects of water damage aren’t irreversible, at the very least this car will need a complete mechanical and electrical rebuild, in addition to a comprehensive structural check and likely rust repairs. The eight-year-old English magazine price guide is also rather optimistic, as the value for one of these cars, in very good condition, is closer to $20k, and the best in the world might only be worth $35k. Certainly $16,000 for a “basket case,” which this car is likely only a close inspection away from being, is far too much.
So too is the $12k spent here, an extremely hopeful purchase, as there is little chance this Giulia GTC could become anything more than a driver. Even to bring it up to that level you’d certainly be so far underwater that Hurricane Isabel would seem like a spring shower. Perhaps the eBay ID of the winning bidder, “Idiot7,” may tell us all we need to know here. Count this as a great triumph for the seller.{/analysis}