Car O'Clock

Pushing our luck

This is the story of how my father and I had decided to see if we could wrangle our way into the Alfa Romeo Museum while on a visit to Italy.

First stop- Lamborgini

The previous day we had been given a personal guided tour around the Lamborghini factory, thanks to the Australian importer in Sydney informing the management I was an important customer. In those days (the mid-1980’s) Lamborghini wasn’t as large or professional as it is today and the ‘importer’ was really the owner of a used car showroom in William Street, Sydney that for a short time was the official Lamborgini dealer in Oz. They might have occasionally sold a new Lamborghini, although I doubt if annual sales went into double figures. My purchase of a used Urraco P300 from them probably didn’t qualify me as an ‘important’ customer, but I didn’t let the facts get in the way of a unique opportunity. 

Surprisingly, the message from the Lamborghini representative in Sydney did the trick and we spent a good 2 hours being shown around the factory by a charming lady from the PR department and had a great time. 

Second stop – Alfa Romeo

The next day, buoyed by this success, we realised we weren’t too far from the Alfa Romeo plant in Arese, about 70 kilometres north-west of Milan, so we just decided to drop by and see if we could blag our way into the Alfa Romeo museum on our the way back to the UK. Unaware of what the standard procedure for such a visit might be, we followed the ‘nothing ventured, nothing gained’ principle.

Anybody home?

To say we just rocked up to the front door is only a slight exaggeration. In truth, there was no front door as such, just a security gate beyond which lay an overhead ramp that led to the main building.

Curiously, there wasn’t any sign of a human being, anywhere. Only the sight of a few cars parked in the car park indicated anyone might be working at Alfa Romeo that day. It was eerily quiet and we wondered if the factory was closed for a holiday, or maybe on strike. 

Not sure what to do, we spied a bell and pressed it…and, nothing happened. We were about to leave when, after about 5 minutes, a taciturn Security Guard appeared and asked us who we wanted to see. Despite our poor Italian language skills we managed to explain we didn’t have an appointment to see anyone and just wanted to know if we could visit the museum. 

We learned it wasn’t possible, the museum was closed. The guard shrugged and said it was only open to groups who had made previously made an appointment in advance. He suggested we write to the Museum Director and try again in the future. He turned around and began to wander back into the main building, but I gave it one more shot: “Sir, I am a great Alfa Romeo enthusiast and have travelled all the way from Australia to see the museum…”

Our taciturn guard stopped, shook his head and picked up a phone. After a good 5 minutes of arm waving and after what sounded like a heated discussion, he put the phone down again and, without saying a word to us, walked back into the factory. At this point, the sensible thing to do was to admit failure and head home again.

Never give up

My father was ready to go, but I persuaded him to stay for a while. This was even though the chances of anything positive happening appeared remote. So we waited and waited – for a good 20 minutes. Then, just as we had started grumbling about the unsmiling, unsympathetic security man, he returned. He gestured to us to follow him across the ramp. 

Without a word, he took us into the large, main building. We walked along a silent corridor and arrived at a large door marked ‘Museo’. Theatrically, he pulled out an enormous, medieval-looking key from his pocket, unlocked the door and, with the merest hint of a smile, waved us inside…

Is this really happening?

We were stunned into silence. There was no sign of an Alfa Romeo employee, no guide and no noise – was this really happening? To this day, we still have no clue if the factory was officially open or closed when decided to see if we could visit the museum.

Looking around in awe, we found ourselves surrounded by an incredible array of rare and precious Alfa Romeos, many of them in darkness. What to do next? After a quick search, we found a couple of light switches. We then began to inspect the cars before someone important came along to throw us out again. Only they never did. 

We were left alone to gaze in wonder at the motoring delights on display to our heart’s content and must have been there for several hours. At times, we were tempted to open a door and sit inside some of the cars, although we thought that might have been pushing our luck, so we didn’t. 

It was so silent in there. We wandered around, slack-jawed, showing reverential respect for the museum exhibits. Many of the cars were priceless ex-race winners, unique examples of the coachbuilder’s art, or rare, one-off prototypes. Cars we knew we’d never have the chance to observe so privately again. It was, we knew, the chance of a lifetime and so we made the most of it. 

Photographic evidence 

The only proof that we were, indeed, at the Alfa Romeo museum can be seen from the photographs we took. The lighting wasn’t perfect – we failed to find all the light switches.  But our day at the museum was something very special and never to be forgotten. Hopefully, a few of my old and rather grainy pictures tell the story of just how lucky we were.

A few of these Alfa Romeos in action

I’ve found a couple of videos that feature some of these cars in action (with thanks to Petrolicious and Fiskens):