Jeremy Clarkson over zijn GTV 6

[86gtv6]

Zondag 22 maart 2009 in The Sunday Times:

And so it goes with Alfa Romeo. My loyalty to the brand began when I had an old GTV6. It let the air out of its tyres most nights. It would weld its twin-plate clutch to the flywheel if you didn’t drive it for a day or two. And once, it dumped its gear linkage onto the propshaft when I was doing about 60mph. The noise that resulted was extraordinary: a bit like Brian Blessed being raped.

Even the design was silly. It was a hatchback but the rear seat couldn’t be folded down because someone who’d had too much wine had put the petrol tank between the cabin and the boot. And the driving position had to be experienced to be believed. The only way you could get comfortable was if you had arms that were 6ft long, a compressed spine and feet attached directly to your knees.

You might expect me to say that I forgave it all these trespasses because it was so glorious to drive. But it wasn’t. In fact, not since the Alfasud has there been an Alfa which is demonstrably better than the competition. And now, of course, Alfa is just a division of Fiat.

However . . . I have argued many times that owning an Alfa is a portal through which all petrolheads must pass if they genuinely want to know what it is that differentiates a car from a toaster or a washing machine.

Because Alfas have flaws, they feel human, as if they have a soul and a temper. Each one — except the Arna, obviously — is like the tortured hero of a Russian novel, a car of extraordinary depths, a car you can never truly fathom, especially when it is four in the morning and it is enveloped in a cloud of steam, yet again, on the North Circular.

They are like cocaine. The unimaginable highs are always matched by immense, brooding lows. Massive electrical storms that inevitably follow a glorious sultry evening.

[Milan GTV6]

In dit filmpje op het eind praat Jeremy ook over de GTV6 die hij had op een Top Gear manier natuurlijk : http://www.topgear.com/uk/videos/Ahead-of-its-time#/uk/