By
David LaChance
—
Updated
in Magazine,
The charmed life of a one-owner Alfa Romeo Berlina
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They’re small. They’re foreign. They’re…trouble. Berry Eitel was well aware of what the critics were saying about Italian cars when she and her husband went shopping for a new family sedan back in 1974. ”But she’s never been any trouble at all,” Berry said. ”She’s been sturdy, strong and problem-free.”
At 36 years and counting, it seems safe to say that the verdict is in on the 2000 Berlina, Alfa Romeo’s sports sedan. The Berlina leads a less active life today, always tucked away for the winter, and never driven in the rain. But for years it served as the Eitels’ family car, rolling up the miles in a way that would confound anyone who ever uttered a discouraging word about Magneti Marelli electrical components or SPICA fuel-injection pumps. ”The Alfa has never stopped. It doesn’t grunt, it doesn’t groan, it doesn’t have ignition problems. I have never had one problem. How about that?” Berry said. ”It’s led a charmed life.”
No doubt, there has always been some serious affinity between Berry and the Alfa. Back in 1974, when Americans were busy buying 2.3 million Chevrolets and 2.2 million Fords, Berry and her then-husband, Walter, did their car shopping at a foreign car dealership in Hartford, Connecticut, run by a sports car enthusiast named Russ Sceli, whose enthusiasm encompassed everything from Bugattis to Volkswagens.
”He liked exotic cars, Porsches and some other exotic types, like Jaguars,” Berry said. The Berlina ”was the only little Alfa sitting in the lot there.” In 1974, the four-door sedan was the least expensive model in Alfa’s lineup, priced below the Montreal, GT Veloce and Spider Veloce. Even so, its sticker price was a steep $5,350, which was up 20 percent from the previous year, and about $400 more than BMW was charging for its 2002.
Berry had not a single moment of doubt about her choice. ”I’m afraid not, which shows you the state of our family,” she said, laughing. ”I just liked foreign cars. We had always had an English car, and my husband had had a Porsche, a blue Porsche, from the same man. I had a Morgan. And at various times we had a Mercedes, we had a Jaguar, we had the Porsche…. We weren’t very American as a family, put it that way. The big car with big seats–I guess we didn’t fit the mold.”
When it came to the Berlina, not that many buyers did fit the mold. According to the global Berlina Registry maintained by Andrew Watry, 89,840 examples of the 2000 Berlina were built during its 1971-’77 production run. Of those, about 3,400 were exported to the States between 1972 and 1974, after which the Berlina was replaced in the U.S. lineup by the Alfetta. It was a drop in the bucket–Alfa’s production for 1974 alone amounted to 208,386. That explains why you’re much more likely today to see a Spider Veloce than a Berlina.
Berry, Walter and their son and daughter traveled everywhere in their Berlina. ”We’ve had just a lot of fun. We did trips all over the U.S.–we went to Virginia, we went down the Smokies, we went to the Everglades, and it had little bubbles on top for tents and that sort of thing,” she said. ”We did Arctic tenting; we went up in the mountains and the poor thing sat and froze with us; it was 10 below zero! So, you know, it was really part of our life.” Berry isn’t sure how many miles the car has covered, but she’s sure the 5,864 showing on the odometer doesn’t begin to tell the story.
Although Berry is a native New Yorker and still lives in the city, the Alfa has always been kept elsewhere. Her husband had a place in Hartford, so that’s where the car was usually garaged when they first bought it. For more than 20 years, Berry has kept the car in a garage at a property she owns in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, in the southern Berkshires. Overnight stays in the city have always carried some degree of risk. For example, ”it was painted once, it was painted that ruby red, the same color. And then the garage [attendant] went by some of the columns on 87th Street, and striped it again, so I threw up my hands and left it,” Berry said. ”It’s got a green stripe on one side from the columns. It was two weeks after it was repainted. It’s New York, you know? But I never left it on the street or anything of that sort.”
Another of the keys to the Berlina’s longevity has been Berry’s unerring knack for finding mechanics who understand the car’s intricacies–there has been no ham-fisted tinkering with the SPICA mechanical fuel-injection system, or with anything else, for that matter. ”I thought of driving it down [to New York], but then I said no, don’t do that, because if there’s any problem at all, there’s no one here who would even have any idea what to do,” she said. The current caretaker, in addition to prodding Berry to use the car more, gives the Berlina a thorough going-over every spring to make sure that it’s ready for the driving season. “It really needs somebody to baby it,” she said. ”Somebody said it’s not a baby, and I said you’re wrong. It is. I treat all my cars like babies.”
Aside from the long-ago repaint, the Alfa is still pretty much as it was when it was built, with its original interior and drivetrain. We had the opportunity to take it for a drive, and it was a delight–the 129hp, twin-cam four revved with abandon; the five-speed felt tight and the unit body emitted not so much as one rattle. ”It takes both feet and both hands to drive,” Berry laughed. ”It’s not very easy to drive, it doesn’t have any of the modern doohickeys for windows, you’ve really got to be hands-on, but I enjoy that. It has no power steering, no power anything. So if I go from [a car with] all this power stuff into the Alfa, I go ‘Yikes!’ But I really enjoy it on a beautiful summer day.
“You know, the stick shift is murder in traffic. You get spoiled. You get spoiled with power windows, power steering, power brakes–it spoils you. Even in Great Barrington, after four traffic lights, I say, ‘Oh my gosh, this is for the birds.’ It’s a lot of work and you have to be awake.” That’s where the Berlina’s alter ego comes in. “I have a big station wagon, which I think is a lot of fun, and it’s an ’89 Chevrolet. People stop and stare at that, too, so it’s becoming a classic. I call it Princess Diana. She’s light blue. She’s just beautiful. There’s a lot of her.”
In spite of the Berlina’s rarity–or maybe because of it–the car attracts a lot of attention when she’s cruising through the Berkshires, which is usually every weekend during the summer. ”People stop dead in the street,” Berry said. ”Especially men–women are not terribly interested.” Some recognize it, but not everyone; ”One guy said, ‘It’s Spanish, isn’t it?’ He knew it was something, but he didn’t know what it was,” she laughed. Some want to buy it. ”I’ve had many, many offers. People have their eye on it.”
”It’s very much beloved by the whole family, an icon I guess you could call it,” Berry said. It also made a big impression on her current husband. ”He married me late in his life, and he had never known anybody who had one of these…. It was exotic–that’s the word. Exotic. He often used to mention that I had it, you know, under his breath. How many women who you marry late in life come with an Alfa?”
Thanks to the care of knowledgeable Alfa mechanics, the 1,962cc twin-cam four, complete with its factory-installed SPICA mechanical fuel-injection system, is still going strong.
There’s not enough room here for tents, but plenty of room for the luggage of a family of four.
The Berlina was painted once, many years ago, immediately after which a New York parking attendant sideswiped a column. The telltale scratch remains on the right rear door.
