Alex Harrington
You’ve all heard of Singer and its whacky but exquisite Porsche restomods. Well, Alfaholics is similar but instead of focussing on iconic sports cars such as old air-cooled 911s, they look to Italy instead. As you may have guessed, Alfa Romeo in particular. The GTA-R 290 is probably the company’s most famous restomod, with Top Gear’s Chris Harris producing a spine-tingling video on it a few years back. Now, Jeremy Clarkson has had a go, and it’s safe to say he loves the thing.
“I drove this today and I’m now nursing a semi,” The Grand Tour presenter posted to his Instagram.
It’s no surprise that Clarkson loved driving the GTA-R after the shining review Harris gave it in his review. He called the car “driving at its very best”, and “essential driving”. It’s visceral. There are no driving aids, just a 2.3-litre four-cylinder engine producing 240hp, and that’s a lot of power when it’s pushing around a car that only weighs 830kg.
Based on a 1967 1300 GT Junior, it’s been stripped of its weight via carbon doors and bonnet and the general removing of interior trim, and with a Yokohama tyre, it’s able to grip up and turn like nothing else. Naturally, according to Harris, it understeers on corner entry until you hit the right pedal to induce a little oversteer. Then it rotates with a little lock from the driver.
We’d love to see a video of Clarkson behind the wheel of such a machine. Please Grand Tour? While we’re waiting, release a few videos of him pedalling this Italian beauty.
