Whatever perceived vacuum existed in my palette of Alfa colors has been filled two-fold in the past couple of weeks. I’ve waited to post on this in order to be sure that both and not just one of the deals would go through, and over the weekend the final movements of this rather loud symphony were played by a small fleet of tow trucks and assistants.

Prior to now–and with a Duetto being a possibly valid exception–I’ve never owned an Alfa coupe. For most alfisti, the gateway drug to the world of Alfas is either the GT/V or Spider. As I said, I’ve had a Spider, but for a long time now I’ve been sitting upright and opening and closing four doors on my Alfas. And while I’ve had opportunities to get into a GT, I’ve never pulled the trigger (or else the car in question was bid out of my reach by guys with deeper pockets). But I now find myself with not one but two coupes, and a very real surplus of cars in my possession. The icing on this cake is that both cars still sport their black plates. (Well, each car only has one of its original plates, but still….)

Coupe #1 is a 1966 GT, previously owned by partner-in-Alfa-crimes Luigi. He’d been sitting on it for a few years, debating whether to fix up and drive, fix up and sell, leave alone and sell, etc., etc., and had gotten as far as bringing it down to his shop space in West Oakland and stripping off some of the paint in order to make a solid case for it on eBay.

Here's the '66 Alfa GT, next to Luigi's awesome column-shift TI. Paint is obviously bad but the body is pretty straight.

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