A Love For Driving Comes Naturally In An Alfa Romeo Giulia

Story and photography by Robert Lidstroem

My late father was a huge car fan. When he got his driving licence, he had already been working for some years and was living cheaply, so he could put away a good amount of money each month. As a result, his first car was a 1967 Volvo Amazon 123 GT. Later on, my dad converted to BMWs —but when my brother and I came into this world, money was put elsewhere and boring family estates came along.

We visited car shows and pizza gatherings together, and my love of cars comes from him, but my parents both got cancer and passed away in September 2013 and March of 2014. In honor of my father, I decided to spend part of my inherited sum on a car.

 So I started to browse around for early Alfa Romeos, and finally, after a month or two of browsing, and realizing that those cars have risen in price (and most of them are in Germany, Belgium, Netherlands or home in Italy), I found one. In Sweden, restored, with what looked like GTA parts.

Ok, so it was in the far north of Sweden, 1,450 kilometers (900 miles) away. It was priced right at the top of my budget set aside for “a classic to keep for life”.

She’s (yes, I call her Giulia) a 1966, 7-owner, 35,000 miles, Autodelta-“touched” Giulia Sprint GT Veloce, tipo 105.36. No major ”tuning” has been made, just some light modifications. It was built on the 6th of July 1966, and sold new in Stockholm 13th of July 1966.

I spent this summer doing research on my Giulia, and ended up with some quite interesting things.

According to the second private owner, Jochen Rindt (who was a factory driver for Autodelta back then) was racing in Sweden. His GTA broke down for some reason, and my car’s second owner was lurking about in the pits before helping out the Autodelta pit crew. He helped get Jochen Rindt back on track, and Autodelta payed its thanks by shipping some parts to him! He got exhausts, manifolds, wheels, rear axles, and what-not for his GTA, and some parts as well for the GTV to be mine 35 years later.

That is the story behind why my GTV has original magnesium Campagnolos and a Group 2 rear axle.

You can find me and Giulia on the smaller, windy roads around my hometown. I have actually created a sort of “track” that I go back on forth on. Twisting turns, steep hills, flat-out-straights. The GTV eats them all and asks for seconds!