Mental. Utterly mental.

See why I fancied a 145 Clover now :) But you talked me out of it didn't you.

Everytime I see one, I wished I had gone for it, but no, you went on about the doom/gloom of the cambelts. :(

It's your fault it is. >:<

There was one with full service history, with recent cam belt, at the=20 time, in gold for =A32k which was the upper limit I had, was fairly low=20 mileage ISTR. I could have stretched a little more and that opened up=20 about about 10 more cars locally. It was just after I decided I wanted a=20 Prelude, after you put me off the 145 and 155 widebodies because of=20 cambelts. There was nothing when I was actively looking for them, as=20 soon as I discounted them from my search, there were loads.

I guess, now, I'm going to have to own one eventually, just to see if=20 Alfas are as good as people reckon.

--=20 Carl Robson "Sorry Sir the meatballs are orf" (The poster formerly known as Skodapilot)

There was one with full service history, with recent cam belt, at the time, in gold for £2k which was the upper limit I had, was fairly low mileage ISTR. I could have stretched a little more and that opened up about about 10 more cars locally. It was just after I decided I wanted a Prelude, after you put me off the 145 and 155 widebodies because of cambelts. There was nothing when I was actively looking for them, as soon as I discounted them from my search, there were loads.

I guess, now, I'm going to have to own one eventually, just to see if Alfas are as good as people reckon.

£2k is very unlikely to get a proper, nice, 145 Cloverleaf. Believe me, I've seen enough Alfas of that generation over the last week or so to last me a lifetime.

At the time you wanted something that would be cheaper to run than the Saab, and a 145 Cloverleaf definitely doesn't come under that category.

Nope, people, drivers who have owned or tested loads of cars. Alfas tend to best rated alongside their peers in almost every generation by those who get to test almost everything.

and neither does a GT4 if you ask me :)

i'd rather have a prelude or GT4 over an ugly alfa but then i like jap crap and steve likes rusty ugly alfa's just as much, each to their own :)

Yeah, I was a fool to myself to stipulate that, but in the end, I let my heart lead my head and bought the Celica.

To be fair, i thought Steve would be the one to bite :)

Personally, i quite like Alfa's. Plan to own something GTA badged one day ;)

So the 60,000 mile one I had last year must have been an exception ;-)

(New top end on the motor, FSH, S reg, new belts... cost me just on £900, sold for quite a bit more)

It wasn't gold and picked up in Manchester was it? Sounds a lot like the one I saw in the autotrader just after I had=20 decided to not bother with Alfas after Steve putting me off.

--=20 Carl Robson "Sorry Sir the meatballs are orf" (The poster formerly known as Skodapilot)

There are so many cars that I want to own. I know that, in the end, I'm unlikely to be able to afford a mint example of many of them, but something that can get a year or two out of before moving on will do me. I wanted a rear engined Skoda, so got one. I wanted a Saab 900 Turbo, so I got one, and would have another. I wanted a 4wd rally car based car, had that. Love it, but it is frustrating sometimes. Maybe time to try a luxo barge from another maker. Then find something mid engined to play with.

Even right after I've bought a car, I'm always thinking about the next one. Can't help it, so many cars, so little time. Wouldn't mind a Talbot Sunbeam and an Opel Manta A at sometime, just to be different.

The one at =A32600 seems not a bad motor, and would have been the upper=20 limit I could have stretched to (After giving SWMBO all the reasons why=20 I was going over =A32k).

--=20 "Sorry Sir, the meatballs are Orf" The poster formerly known as Skodapilot.

Know what you mean. As overpriced as you might think A6 TDI Avants are, I knew that, from looking at a few, and phoning up absolutely loads, I wasn't going to get a decent 140bhp SE Avant for much less than £6k, at that time, unless I was *extremely* lucky.

Not bad, but I'm after a facelift model if possible.

I know the 146 got the facelift model, but the 145 facelift didn't hit=20 the UK did it?

I remember when researching them, saw loads of wonderful interiors, but=20 non of them british, so I asked arround and we didn't get them here.

--=20 Carl Robson "Sorry Sir the meatballs are orf" (The poster formerly known as Skodapilot)

The exterior certainly got the updates - signified by the 'mustache' grille.

AFAIK, we never did get the updated interior on either model - there were minor improvements when the TSpark models came along, but we didn't get the 3rd version of the interior the continentals got. (this came with the 'mustache' grille)

Ah right, that would be what I was thinking of. The 3rd interior looked=20 much nicer.

--=20 Carl Robson "Sorry Sir the meatballs are orf" (The poster formerly known as Skodapilot)