Man Maths: Alfa Romeo Alfasud 1.5 Ti

It’s not even the right model. To my mind the one to have is a 95bhp, twin-carb 1.5 Ti Veloce, introduced at the very start of the 1980s, before the heavier, less rigid hatchback came along and before the introduction of the less sweet 105bhp specification run-out engine which came with awful metric-sized Michelin TRX rubber so couldn’t be swapped for anything else. They’ve become known as the Betamax of the tyre industry and rightly so. Or, just maybe, an early 1.3 Ti.

If you’re starting to worry about my health given the level of knowledge on show here, I should explain I grew up in these things. My father had an endless series of them, it was a ’Sud I was in when I saw an indicated 100mph for the first time while driving and my brother raced them and pretty successfully too.

The car in question is a 1978 pre-facelift model, with the 85bhp Ti engine which is good and the four-door body which is less good. But the thing with Alfasuds is there are just not enough around for you to be picky. Goodness knows how many of those 150 are clinging to their V5s on a wing and a prayer. If you want one, you want it for Rudi Hruska’s sparkling flat-four, overhead camshaft motor, the five-speed gearbox that was standard in most, the disc brakes (inboard at the front), the rack and pinion steering and the handling that allowed it to run rings around a Mk1 Golf GTI on a decent road. It was the best handling front-drive car of its era by several miles and when it was new in 1971, that specification was unprecedented in a small family car.

So the point is, if you find a good one, the fact it maybe has 10 fewer horsepower than is ideal, or perhaps two more doors, is less important than in the vast majority of other cars. If the price is right, you buy it because who knows how long it will be before the next decent ’Sud comes along?

Is this a good one? It certainly looks it, but I’ll not know until I see it up close. Will I love driving it, or will I just think it’s a nice old car for someone else? It’s been at least 30 years since I’ve driven one. What’s the right price to pay? I don’t even know that. What I do know is that if I get it there’ll need to be some serious shed rearranging just to put a roof over its head; it’ll put me in greater debt at exactly the time of my life when I really should be trying to be reduce such things and, most worrying of all, I haven’t the slightest idea what I’ll do with it once it’s mine. Which is to break perhaps the biggest rule of all.

But that’s Man Maths for you. If it were logical, you’d not be reading this and I’d not be considering buying a 46-year-old Italian shopping car with a reputation for turning to dust before your very eyes. And where’d be the fun in that?

Photography courtesy of Bonhams|Cars Online

Free Reads on The Intercooler are freely available for all to read. The vast majority of our stories, including all of our feature articles, sit behind the paywall, only available to subscribers who get unlimited access to our ever-growing library of more than a thousand stories and close to two million words. 

Click here to start your 30-day free trial and gain full access to The Intercooler’s multi award-winning website and app.