Down On The Mile High Street: Alfa Romeo GTV6

Murilee Martin
by Murilee Martin

You’ll see the occasional Alfa Spider or Milano on the streets of Denver, maybe even a 164, but it’s a special day when a GTV6 appears. This one lives in my neighborhood, just a block or so from the ’52 Kaiser Henry J Corsair daily driver.

The GTV6 was a member of the Alfetta family, but instead of the old familiar Twin Cam engine it had a 2.5 liter V6. Along with the new engine came new, intensely 80s styling. I don’t have the Alfa expertise to ID the year on this car (the GTV6 was sold in the United States from 1981 through 1986), but the lack of a third brake light (probably) means it’s a 1985 or earlier model.

The list price for these cars ranged from about 16 grand to nearly $19,000, or roughly the same price as a BMW E30. Sure, the E30 was more reliable, better built, and more powerful, but who cares?







Murilee Martin
Murilee Martin

Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.

More by Murilee Martin

Comments
Join the conversation
2 of 35 comments
  • Prattworks Prattworks on Feb 24, 2011

    These things just sound fantastic. I used to run early in the morning on the edge of town, and a guy with a GTV6 used to drive past me almost every morning. He might have had an ANSA exhaust, too. He was clearly enjoying the buzz.

  • Carlo Di Paolo Carlo Di Paolo on Feb 25, 2011

    I was too young and poor to be able to buy one of these. I would go to the showroom, drool, stare, sit in it, stare some more, drool some more then go home till the next time. Much later when they were gone I bought a new Milano (75). I drove that Milano for the next 22 years. I love these cars and miss mine; I hope I could get a new Alfa soon, its been too long.

  • ToolGuy North America is already the greatest country on the planet, and I have learned to be careful about what I wish for in terms of making changes. I mean, if Greenland wants to buy JDM vehicles, isn't that for the Danes to decide?
  • ToolGuy Once again my home did not catch on fire and my fire extinguisher(s) stayed in the closet, unused. I guess I threw my money away on fire extinguishers.(And by fire extinguishers I mean nuclear missiles.)
  • Carson D The UAW has succeeded in organizing a US VW plant before. There's a reason they don't teach history in the schools any longer. People wouldn't make the same mistakes.
  • B-BodyBuick84 Mitsubishi Pajero Sport of course, a 7 seater, 2.4 turbo-diesel I4 BOF SUV with Super-Select 4WD, centre and rear locking diffs standard of course.
  • Corey Lewis Think how dated this 80s design was by 1995!
Next