1973 Alfa Romeo Montreal - Montreal

Delivered new to Salzburg

Three decades with one previous owner

Extensively recommissioned ten years ago

Matching numbers

When Alfa Romeo presented a futuristic coupé at Expo 67 in Montreal, it was really intended as little more than a show car. Marcello Gandini had penned the lines for Bertone, while underneath sat comparatively prosaic Giulia mechanicals. Initially, the design study did not even have a name. The public promptly took care of that and christened it after the place where they had seen it: The Montreal.

The response was so overwhelming that Alfa Romeo decided to develop it into a production model. Only now it had to deliver what that spectacular bodywork promised. So the Giulia mechanicals had to make way for something considerably more exciting: eight cylinders in a V, derived from the racing engine of the Tipo 33. Enlarged to 2.6 litres and considerably tamed for road use, it produced 200 bhp with mechanical SPICA fuel injection. A five-speed ZF gearbox and limited-slip differential completed the package.

By 1970, the finished Montreal was on display at the Geneva Motor Show. Gandini’s design had lost remarkably little of its impact on the way to production. The partially concealed headlamps, the slats behind the doors and the low silhouette made it one of the most distinctive designs of its era. Only the supposed air intakes behind the doors were largely theatre. Italy, after all.

Underneath, some things remained rather more conventional. The suspension and live rear axle were closely related to the Giulia. That made the Montreal less exotic than other contemporary sports cars, but certainly no less exciting. The V8 revved with an enthusiasm that did little to disguise its racing ancestry and propelled the car to more than 220 km/h.

Despite all that, the Montreal was never a great commercial success. It was expensive, thirsty and arrived just before the oil crisis of the 1970s. Today, all that seems almost beside the point. Few other Alfas combined a racing-derived engine, Bertone extravagance and mass-production mechanicals with quite such abandon. Sensible it was not. Thankfully, it was properly exciting.

This Montreal was delivered in January 1973 to Alfred Bründl’s company in Salzburg. By October of the same year, he had already sold the Alfa to Vöcklabruck in Upper Austria. With its third owner, the extravagant sports car returned to Salzburg in 1975. It remained registered there to its fourth owner for almost thirty years, until 2005.

Another ten years passed before it was registered in Salzburg once again. Before then, an enthusiast had extensively gone through the car, with the work duly documented. While the bodywork was refinished in classic red, the original cloth interior was preserved. The notoriously delicate fuel-injection system was naturally overhauled as well, and the Montreal has been driven regularly ever since.

Today, this Montreal once again presents itself as exactly what Alfa Romeo promised all those years ago: a spectacular exterior with equally exciting machinery underneath. If only they would finally build cars like this in Milan again!