Talk Morgan Forums Community General Photo Gallery Alfa Romeo spider

I’m reliving my youth, I’ve bought a bargain basement money pit, the Pininfarina designed Alfa Romeo 916 spider. These were the last model to be manufactured in the Arese factory.

Good points, it was local, cheap and has a huge history file, but most of all, it’s an Alfa!
Bad points, MOT failure caused by but not limited to: air bag fault as well as brake balance and brake pipes. Not their prettiest effort either, but like most Alfas, they grow on you the more you look at them. for me personally, I don’t like silver cars, the paint is shoddy anyway so I might have a go at painting it myself, Rosso Corsa red, but the real fun is spending as little as possible to make it road worthy again.

These were expensive cars when new and it shows, all the stuff which shouldn’t work works perfectly despite the reputation, the interior in particular looks like 30k miles, not the 130k it has actually done. I have the original invoice from 1999 when the first owner paid £24k for it and waited nearly a year for it to arrive. The roof is a bit tatty here and there but it’ll do the job, it’s manual and it all work fine.

Bloody urban foxes used to hoover up our kids rabbits & guinea pigs regularly, often no evidence, like they'd just vapourised, it got very stressful trying to match up the replacements to colour, size and gender

We'd have caught the fox jammed in the gate by its belly after polishing off about 40 of the little squeeking furry lumps 😁 ... plus we had geese and an outside dog and not a peep out of them!! 🙂

Further thread drift ... apparently guinea-pigs are the ideal 'survivalist' livestock ... breed freely, live on scraps and vegetation not otherwise useable ... and each one is a family sized stew meaning no wastage in a freezer-free post apocalyptic world (most of a sheep or goat would go off before it could be eaten unless it was for a tribe). Enjoy your supper! 😄



K

Ps ... they're quite a street-food delicacy in Chile and Peru

We actually emigrated five guinea pigs to the shed, three escaped the run and left without trace. I’d like to imagine they’re roaming free in the den and having the time of their life making friends with the all the Buzzards, Crows, Badgers, weasels and toads, perhaps even Rupert the Bear.

I picked this guy up last month at “The Barras “, he’s made in England in 1969 by Bendy, same age as me, bought for sentimental reasons. My Granny had a pile of Rupert annual which belonged to my mum, I didn’t like them.

Now I have my vintage shed, I can collect all sorts of nostalgia. Here’s a Clarke’’s of London 1 1/2 hp compressor from 1978, an oil cooled Pickhill welder from 1986,(not the one I wanted, I was looking for a Bantam but I bought it any way), and a weighing scales of unknown age made by John White and Son of Auchtermuchty, c/w a box of weights,

If you keep it up, then when you finally shuffle off sometime in the 2070's there'll be a hell of a roup out there!! .... pity I'll have missed it by a few decades 😁

K

You’re right and that’ll be one of the biggest disappointments of being dead, I’ll miss it too😁

Wow! ... did a google of JWS of Auchtermuchty .... firm started in 1715 and still going strong ... reckon they know a thing or two about weighing stuff by now!! 😁

K

Lovely stuff. Wish I had the space.

An innocent question: When does collecting become an obsession?

I have a keen interest in model aircraft (the flying sort). I have too much stuff, but nothing like as bad as this chap and his collection of plastic kits.......

Thanks for heads up Keith, pretty good for something I got for nothing!

It’s riddled with woodworm hence the tin of worm dispatch fluid, I tried looking for pictures to see what colour it should be, no luck, I’ll give them a ring in the morning.

Paul, thankfully I’m immune to obsession, but unfortunately I can’t resist a bargain!