"It's the 'Alfatross!' KC said, referring to the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, by the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, written about 200 years ago. OK, if you're the average gearhead, already poised to continue surfing, bear with me a few more lines because this is the best place to start what will (I hope) turn out to be an entertaining and possibly even instructive account of how an ignorant kid from the hills of North Carolina (me) blundered into possession of an old car that is now, 43 years later, increasing in value faster than shares of Apple.
This is not a blog about how smart I am to have ended up with this car. Or how I paid a "marque specialist" a ton of money to research and restore it. Or how important it is to Alfa Romeo heritage or to classic 1950s sports cars in general. It is about the inexplicable, visceral attraction such cars have on people (OK, mostly men) and why gearheads go to such great lengths to keep them alive.
So in case you haven't figured it out already, the 'Alfatross' KC was referring to in the first line is my 1955 Alfa Romeo 1900 C SSZ. Only none of us knew what it was at the time. It might also be instructive to mention that Coleridge was a life-long cocaine addict and author of another one of the trippiest poems of all time, Kubla Khan.
Back to the car: classmate KC's single word 'Alfatross' captured perfectly the scene before her. There I was, grease-monkey-in-training and penniless graduate student with my buddy, Bob, hoisting the engine out of what she perceived to be a burdensome wreck of an old car with foggy windows and peeling paint when we should have been in the university's library or laboratory bettering ourselves. To her the old car was the 'Alfatross' around my neck, punishment for some heinous crime committed in the past. To me, at that point (1981) it was a vague, partially remembered dream.
This is not a blog about how smart I am to have ended up with this car. Or how I paid a "marque specialist" a ton of money to research and restore it. Or how important it is to Alfa Romeo heritage or to classic 1950s sports cars in general. It is about the inexplicable, visceral attraction such cars have on people (OK, mostly men) and why gearheads go to such great lengths to keep them alive.
But first, back to the 'Alfatross.' In the poem, The Mariner, a sailor, shoots an albatross--a most remarkable sea bird about which we will hear more later--and is castigated by the superstitious crew who believe that the albatross brings safe voyage to a ship at sea. But when there are no immediate bad consequences the crew changes it's mind and praises the Mariner instead . . . . Until the ship becomes becalmed, inspiring the immortal lines "Water, water, everywhere, but not a drop to drink/ Water, water, everywhere, and all the boards did shrink." At that point Coleridge's poem and my story come together because the doomed crew tie the dead albatross around the Mariner's neck to punish him for the crime of killing it.
So in case you haven't figured it out already, the 'Alfatross' KC was referring to in the first line is my 1955 Alfa Romeo 1900 C SSZ. Only none of us knew what it was at the time. It might also be instructive to mention that Coleridge was a life-long cocaine addict and author of another one of the trippiest poems of all time, Kubla Khan.Back to the car: classmate KC's single word 'Alfatross' captured perfectly the scene before her. There I was, grease-monkey-in-training and penniless graduate student with my buddy, Bob, hoisting the engine out of what she perceived to be a burdensome wreck of an old car with foggy windows and peeling paint when we should have been in the university's library or laboratory bettering ourselves. To her the old car was the 'Alfatross' around my neck, punishment for some heinous crime committed in the past. To me, at that point (1981) it was a vague, partially remembered dream.
