For $5,000 Is This An Alfa Dog?

The products of Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili are usually reserved for the faithful and reverent. Today's Nice Price or Crack Pipe Alfetta however, looks to be more akin to the fast and furious.

It turns out Larry Craig isn't the only one with a wide stance that can't garner the votes. Yesterday's Dallara-stein X1/9 couldn't manage anything better than an 83% Crack Pipe loss as its price was seen as crazy high, even if it was in loonies.

Overhead cam four cylinder, sporting, two-door hatchback body, five-speed transaxle, we're talking about Porsche's 924 or 944, right? Nope, but just as the Germans and the Italians conspired during WWII, today's car shares a lot in the way of concept and execution with those products from the neighbors to the north. The Alfetta however never gained the kind of lore as did the Porsche, possibly due to the latter car's seemingly singular attraction to douchebags. Instead, due to its reputation for fragility, the Alfetta appealed to masochists. Or, in the case of this 1976 edition apparently sadists.

The Alfetta introduced the transaxle to Alfa's road cars, and its double wishbone, torsion bar independent front and De dion rear suspension was a lot more complex than anything BMW was foisting at the time. Alfa also beat the Bavarians to the twin cam by decades, the Alfetta being powered in many guises by Alfa's iconic and lovely four. Available in either Centro Stile Alfa Romeo-designed four door, or like today's car, a Giugiaro-penned three-door hatch, the Alfetta proved to be one of the Milano brand's most love-lived models. This '76 three door proves that such long lives can contain some strange turns.

This Alfetta is different in the way cabbage ice cream is different – sure it's ice cream, and everyone likes that, but add a flavor that may give your taste buds the impression that they are experiencing a cold and creamy fart and maybe the universe of advocates will shrink noticeably. Similarly, the owner, or some previous project runway-obsessed deviant, has attempted to accessorize the Alfa's clean lines with. . . well, it's kind of indescribable.

The rubber park bench bumpers have been replaced with what looks like appropriated pieces of guard rail, while popping from the hood is an air intake that's only purpose could be channeling cooling air to the spark plug wires. Around back it has gained a wing off of Wonder Woman's airplane, which doesn't intrude on your ability to view the Pep Boys audio department beneath the hatch. That's just the start of the cornucopia of crap which is the interior, there being the trailer park ubiquitous Grant steering wheel and 'alloy' pedal covers – the alloy here being plastic. Facing those are a pair of original Alfa bucket that, due to some creative repair efforts now each look like Taylor Momsen.

Avoiding eye contact with that weird scoop while popping the hood would be advisable, but you'd still want to do it in order to confirm that it's a bridge to nowhere. Like all U.S. Alfettas (Alfetti?) the engine was originally cursed with SPICA mechanical injection, although obvious from the pictures – and the seller's description that it's now 'carborated' – it rocks a pair of Weber side draughts. He also claims that everything removed does come along with the car, and one would hope that doesn't include any even more egregious add-ons like Lambo doors or Taylor Momsen.

So yeah, it's a freakshow. In fact, it's so incongruously modified that you might want to start looking up whether there's an Italian word for mullet. But in this Alfetta's favor is that all those additions seem to be tacked onto what appears to be a solid body, and the ad says it only has 25,649 miles on its clock. That's pretty amazing because these cars don't just have a propensity for rust, they have the ability to oxidize with the rapidity of a tanning vampire and leaving their driver with nothing more than a bad case of tetanus. That means that this could potentially be a decent starting point for a proper Alfetta driver and perhaps most of the crap would fall off on the way home.

Getting it to strip like a drunken prom date will take giving its current owner $5,000. You might also want to knock him in the nards for making this Alfa look like something Mad Max's dingo wouldn't even piss on, but that's beside the point. What isn't beside that point – actually just a little down-wind of it – is whether you think this Alfetta is worth that $5,000. Is that a price that can make you overlook its personalizations? Or, does that just make it even more personally offensive?

You decide!

eBay or go here if the ad disappears. H/T to Toshiro_Mifune for the hookup!

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