{vsig}2003-6_1311{/vsig}
This Alfa has a 1750 injection engine, 63,000 miles, five-speed. Stored inside 25 years. Does not run. Totally complete. Needs someone to breathe life into her.
Has extra top. Inside of engine looks perfect! Excellent candidate for restoration.
Alloy wheels. Bumpers are great. The body is almost rust-free and seems perfectly straight. The fender has the paint lifting off-it looks like something was left on it and it held moisture and bubbled the paint. Surface rust except what you see in the pics.
{analysis} This car sold for $2,651 after a three-day auction. The seller had a feedback rating of (7), the buyer of (110). There were 24 bids in all. The serial number of the car was not provided.
This is a near-perfect example of how to get bottom dollar for your car. Most importantly, having a three-day auction instead of a seven- or 10-day one means there is no time for the "buzz" about your car to build, as the link to your auction is mailed and remailed within the body of enthusiasts.
The description was relatively straightforward, although I would like to know what kind of X-ray vision the seller had to be able to say, "The inside of the engine looks perfect." I wonder if Mr. See Through noticed that the engine bay was white, indicating that this was once a white car that has been color changed.
I did appreciate the pictures that pointed out how truly horrible the car was, with paint bubbling on every surface, the surround missing off the steering column (why?) and the home-boy attempt at repair of the trunk lid.
Given what I can see from the pictures, this was a rust-infested car. I would make it wear a SARS mask before putting it on a car-hauler, lest its mere passing cause every paint job within 20 miles to start bubbling as it went by.
If I had been selling this car, I would have opted for a seven-day auction. I would have tried to turn the engine over by taking out the sparkplugs, pouring some Marvel Mystery Oil down the plug holes, letting it sit for a couple days and then trying to rock it back and forth while it was in fifth gear. Further, I would have had a photo of the interior of the trunk and a couple of shots from underneath the car.
Alfa Romeo roundtails are fairly straightforward, robust cars. Purists prefer the 1967, 1600-cc carbureted models, known as Duettos. The 1750 models, while having a slightly more powerful engine, were saddled with problematic SPICA fuel injection and trouble-prone dual brake boosters.
Values of roundtails have never been what they should be, given the mechanical sophistication of the car. Consider that MGBs of the same era had primitive, 1800cc overhead valve engines, while the Alfa sported an alloy engine, gearbox and differential, with chain-driven dual overhead cams.
Yet we are now seeing concours Bs cross the $20,000 threshold, while roundtails struggle to get to $15,000.
This low market value means that the car pictured here, if not broken up for parts, may get a haphazard amateur restoration, with Bondo slathered on rocker panels and sheetmetal welded into the floors. Let's hope not.
But a first-rate restoration of this car would easily cost more than $15,000, and you'd certainly be better off just buying a done one than stripping the paint off of this can of Italian worms.
As this car was presented on eBay Motors, a prudent buyer would only assume the worst, and that what he was seeing on the screen was just the tip of the corrosion monster that was trying desperately to devour this car. If that's the case, then the seller was shrewd in revealing as little as possible and hoping for a bidder whose dreams colored the reality.
But if the car were actually better than described, and the seller had put a little more energy into letting buyers know exactly what they were bidding on, he might have even gotten another $1,000 out of this beater.-Keith Martin{/analysis}