Finding love in Vatican City with an Alfa Romeo Giulia

Recently, I spent two weeks in Rome reporting on the election of a new pontiff. Pope Francis’ surprising selection (British oddsmakers and Vatican pundits both thought white smoke would rise for an Italian) was accompanied by a fervor for his grandfatherly style (“You’ve worked a lot, eh,” Pope Francis said with a smile when he met with some 3,000 journalists). But while all that made for great copy and indelible images, an unexpected encounter of an automotive kind ranked almost as high on the memory-o-meter.

“Will you be at your hotel at 2:30 this afternoon?” an old Roman friend asked, not really waiting for a reply. “I’ll come by.”

And then there he was. Make that she was: A merlot-colored 1970 Alfa Romeo Giulia Super, just as I’d remembered her. Back in the ‘70s, when I was grinding my way through elementary school as a fish-out-of-acqua New York kid in the Eternal City’s public school system, my new friend Renato Gatto would occasionally ask if I’d like to accompany him and his father on a road trip. Sometimes to the beach, others to the hilltop town of Perugia. But it didn’t matter where we were going. The journey in that Alfa always threatened to outshine the destination.

A quick primer on Alfa Romeo, now a Fiat/Chrysler-owned brand that soon plans to stage a U.S. comeback, includes the salient fact that its cars were racing champs in the early part of the 20th century. Enzo Ferrari drove for Alfa before deciding to start a little company of his own. Although Alfas entered our popular consciousness when Dustin Hoffman ripped around California’s sun-splashed highways in a convertible Duetto in 1967’s “The Graduate,” European buyers knew the Milanese automaker for its light, zippy and handsome Giulia sedans.

The Super in particular made waves. Introduced in 1965, its twin-Weber carb,1.6-liter, light alloy twin-cam engine revved easily to 6,500 rpm. Some 160-hp pushed the car to 62 mph in an era-respectable 12 seconds, while top speed was 106 mph. Disc brakes all around slowed the car with reasonable haste. Inside, massive twin gauges sat behind an elegant if thin wooden steering wheel. The Super looked the business, an Italian job that the carabinieri, Italy’s state police, adopted the model as their personal chase vehicle.

As my friend darted through notoriously chaotic Roman traffic and wound his way up to the summit of Monte Mario, he reminded me of the car’s impressively simple story. His father had taken the entire family to a local dealership to collect the new car. “He was very proud of it, and always kept it in amazing condition,” my friend said.

What’s more amazing is that despite having the means, his dad never once thought of upgrading to a newer model over the decades. When he passed away a few years back, Renato expressed interest in the car. Not that anyone else in the family was clamoring for it.

“Are you kidding?” he said. “My mother still asks me why I don’t get rid of this old thing.”