My first Alfa encounter happened when I was around 10 years old. A family friend picked up my father in his brand new beige GTV. The image of the low tapered tail, the 2000 badge and the exhaust note remain fresh in my mind. Ten years later, at the Toronto International Auto Show, I saw a spider quadrifogio. Unfortunately, it was beyond my budget as I just graduated from University and there was no room for golf bag. I came close to buying an Alfa in 1994 when my wife and I test drove the 164. We loved the car but were turned off by the sales person’s attitude. After Alfa left North America, I have pretty much given up the idea of owning one as I know very little about auto mechanics. In 2008, I saw a red GTV6 in my neighborhood and that was enough to ignite my interest again. Thanks to the internet, I found out about the New York Alfa Romeo Owners’ Club, Alfa specialists in Long Island and web sites where I can find parts. Equipped with these resources, I finally purchased the 73 GTV on the internet. When I am not driving the Alfa, I like to build and collect models. I am a regular at the Sunday breakfast. This is a great opportunity to talk about cars and other recent events in the community.
Lou Grasso
After sending my TR6 to the rust graveyard with over 250M miles on it, I didn't get the "bug" for another sports car until September of 1990, when I saw an ad for the 1991 Alfa Romeo Spider Veloce on the back of a magazine. I ran right down to the dealer and test drove it. It was amazing compared to the TR6... what a ride. I ordered it and joined the AROC as soon as I took delivery. My first event at the NY Chapter was a rally. It was great fun. I met the core members who loved the marque and shared their enthusiasm over the "new look" Spider. Since then my wife Joann and I became part of the Alfa Family, attending many car meets and social events. Recently we began having "unofficial" Sunday breakfasts which are now ritual. Breakfast is a great way for members who don't attend events to come and meet a great group of people. It becomes a mini car show, a clinic (we usually have a mechanic or two present) and a good reason to drive your Alfa. On Sunday mornings I encourage all members to come and enjoy the camaraderie of our group. I guarantee a warm welcome and the beginning of many new Alfisti friendships.
Phillip Jacobs
Watching "The Graduate" for the first time sold me on an Alfa Romeo Spider, that and the Simon & Garfunkel soundtrack. (To this day that is still one of my favorite movies.) I graduated High School in 1978 with hopes of someday owning an Alfa. It wasn't until the summer of 2002 that I found my self still dreaming about it. One day, over a beer, my friend and I found ourselves reminiscing about a car he had bought his last year of school, a 1969 TR6. Mike no longer had his car, and before I could say that I never even got mine I thought to my self "what the heck!" It was my turn to own an Alfa. Before making such a purchase I did some research and decided to join the AROC. Finally in March of 2003, with somehelp from the Alfa Auto Clinic I purchase my very own Alfa Romeo Spider. I couldn't have been happier with their efforts or the results. The car is a 1978 Alfa Romeo Niki Lauda Special Edition #78. It was in good condition, a few adjustments and a new paint job was about all it took. Joining the AROC of NY has been as much fun as owning the car. I could tell from my first Sunday breakfast with the group that I was with people that shared my enthusiasm for Alfas. I have learned lots of useful information from other members and have made lots of friends. My Alfa is a pleasure to drive, it's not the Duetto that Dustin drives in "The Graduate", and California is a long ride from here, but I couldn't be happier. I have the club, and I finally have my Alfa!
Andrew Jacobs
My love affair with sports cars began in the early ‘60s when there would be road rallies around Roosevelt Field on Sundays (in those days there was no such thing as a store open on a Sunday), and my older brother Ron would race his MGA. Then in 1974 when I was 17, Ron made a deal with me. He had moved into the city and his 1968 Corvette Sting Ray was sitting in the garage doing nothing, so he said if I passed my road test on the first try he would sell me the car for $1000 if he hadn’t sold it. Out of all my friends, I was the only one who passed on the first try, but two days earlier he sold it for $3500. From that point on I passed through five VWs, a Vega (worst car ever made) a Honda, two Volvos, a Suburu, and Audi and a Benz, but until 2005 I never came close to my roadster. By that time I had studied the subject extensively and my accumulated knowledge of cars and life itself led me to the realization that Italian sports cars were far and away the best sports cars ever made, and that the Alfa was the original sports car.
I love my wife, I love my kids, but I ADORE my 1991 Alfa Romeo Spider Veloce. Moreover, as much as my car gives me a lot of pleasure, I have to say that the best part of owning it is the chance I have had to meet a great bunch of people in the NYAROC. They are fun to be around, are all gear heads, and best of all, they laugh at all my jokes.
John DeGeorge
My beautiful GTV-6 Balocco love at first and second sight It was 1981, I was an upward mobile junior executive, I had a ‘72 Fiat Spider for weekends and was shopping for a 3 Series BMW. But then one day I wondered into Grand Prix Motors in Stony Brook, Long Island and it was love at first sight! A 1981 red GTV-6 seduced me right there in the showroom. I had to have a test drive and the minute I turned the key and that spectacular hemi head Alfa V6 rumbled to life I was hooked. It had everything the BMW was lacking, power, beauty, power, Italian styling, power and an unsurpassed racing heritage. I bought it immediately and was set for a lifetime of automotive bliss. As is the case with most marriages that are only based on lust, the relationship with my new Alfa soon became a less than pleasant experience. Needless to say, 1981 was not the high water mark year for Alfa reliability. I had a beautiful young wife at home raising my two wonderful children. Suffice to say, on more occasions then I care to remember she had to pack the kids into her Pontiac sedan to retrieve me from my non-operative GTV-6 or drive me to the dealer where the Alfa had been towed. While it was ecstasy when running properly, more often than not it was pure agony. It was this initial experience with Alfa Romeo and my wonderful Italian wife that caused me to coin the statement, “Italian sport cars are like Italian women, very beautiful and extremely exciting, but a pain in the ass to live with.” Maddy decided that she wasn’t happy living with the GTV-6 in our family and I couldn’t make a valid argument to the contrary so we reluctantly sold the Alfa and soon forgot about it. Well, so I thought. Fast forward to 1998, I’m enjoying a happy marriage and a successful career, my children are all grown up, educated and out of the nest. Suddenly, I have a major relapse of the dreaded NEAD, never ending Alfa Addiction and I become obsessed with finding another Alfa, more specifically a GTV-6. “Just when you think you’re out, they pull you back in.” After a year and a half of research, meeting Alfisti like Joey LoRe and searching I found my Balocco with only 26K original miles near Harrisburg, PA. During that time I went to see many GTV-6’s described by their owners as in good condition with only the usual surface rust. Did you know that you can see through the fenders of cars with the surface rust. However, the minute I saw my Balocco, it was again, love at first sight, or in my case it was actually love at second sight. Joey and I went to Harrisburg to retrieve my new mistress and the rest is history. This GTV-6 was meticulously maintained and it had all of the upgrades of the vastly improved í86 model year. In the four years I’ve owned it, it thrills me every time I drive it and has never let me down. While it took almost twenty years to buy my second Alfa, it only took one more year to buy my third Alfa, a pristine 164S. This story has an even better conclusion, I continue to enjoy my GTV-6, but it’s the friendships that I’ve developed with my fellow NYAROC Alfisti and sharing the numerous Alfa events we have every year that makes my Alfa experience a thing of beauty and never ending enjoyment Yes, Alfa’s are an addiction, but its lots of fun and feels so good!
George Pezold
I have owned and driven many Alfas since my first one in 1964, a 1600 Giulia Sprint, but my all-time favorite is the beautiful 1600 Giulia TZ. I was touring Europe in the fall of 1963 with a family friend, Owen Murphy, and we found ourselves in Milano. It was October, and everyone was talking about the auto races in Monza. We decided to drive up and see for ourselves, which itself was a competitive event since every Fiat owner considers himself a racecar driver. Monza was an experience - entire families were there with their picnic tables, chairs and ladders with seats on top for the kids. The smell of charcoal grilled sausages and onions blended with Castrol and gasoline fumes. At the start of one of the races (the FISA Cup), a crew peeled the covers off three sleek little Kamm-tailed racers. I recall noticing how they cornered with their tails up in the air. The TZ's won the race that day. I didn't see a TZ again for a few years. One passed me on Jericho Turnpike, but even though I made a U-turn and tried to follow it, it disappeared in traffic. Then there was another one on a mountain road in northern Italy. Again, I gave chase but my rented Opel was no match for it as it sped up through the hairpin turns.It was 1971, and I came across an ad in Newsday that mentioned a "GTZ" for sale. I promptly picked up the phone and spoke to the owner, John Steubenrauch, who explained that he had justreturned from a stint with the military in Germany and had picked up a Swiss rally car, as well as some others and had to sell them because he was buying a house. With checkbook in hand, I drove over to West Hills, and within the hour had bought the car. It was a beauty, red with a white nose, chassis No. 750014. Unfortunately, I only enjoyed No. 014 for a year or so, when it was involved in an accident and the entire front end was very badly damaged. I brought it home to my garage and initially thought it was unrepairable. Two uncanny strokes of luck encouraged me to attempt rebuilding the car: in Texas I found the forward tube steel chassis and front suspension parts from No. 007, the Sanesi car that had burned at Sebring; then I discovered a complete aluminum nose skin in a dark back corner of the Alfa Romeo warehouse in Englewood Cliffs. Work pro-gressed slowly, but after many months I had successfully attached the donor chassis section and assemble the front suspension, steering, etc. Still ahead was the design and building of a sub-frame for the sheet metal nose. Then one day, my friend Sam Smith called and said he had recently bought a TZ that had been imported from Sicily, and was considering selling it. The car was said to have been a private entry car in the Targa Florio (Nino Todaro), and had been raced extensively. After some negotiations, and a swap for a 250 Ferrari Spider, I became the proud owner of No. 058, which I have now owned for some 30 years.
George Linton
I joined the National organization of Alfa owners 8 years ago, my goal was to learn more about Alfa Romeo's, joining automatically made me a member of the "AROCNY". I had been a sports car nut for years, but there was something special about "Alfa people". As a member I have had the pleasure of meeting the nicest most fun-loving bunch of gear heads I've ever known. Each Sunday morning, rain or shine, we meet at a local diner, have breakfast and share stories. As a club we have had many wonderful experiences, such as attending the National Alfa convention in Ft. Lauderdale Fla., relaxing wine tours, and even a caravan to Lime Rock Park to watch vintage races. In 2003 some of our members participated in time trials against the Connecticut chapter, the best part... we won!
Dino Pappous
It began with my first car, not an Alfa, a 1969 Pontiac Bonneville. After four years of college and countless hours working at my father's coffee shop I had a few bucks and was ready for a new ride. Trans Am's and Z-28's were the hot cars at the time, but they didn't "turn me on". One day I stumbled upon an ad for an Alfa Spider, black with brown interior, I had to see it. There it was,beautiful, well maintained, and always garaged, in other words, perfect. This was my new car. I jumped at the chance to own it and never looked back... even though I didn't know how to drive a stick. Now I own a Giulia Sprint GT and a 164. I love driving them both and often alternate driving them to our Sunday morning breakfast where we sit and talk about Alfas.
