In April 2008 I had a home leave from my work in Japan and decided to go and check the vehicle. The car was stored at “garage Frijsinger” in Sittard. I went to see it together with my father on April 29^th The weather was fantastic. It was sunny and a nice temperature of 18 degrees Celsius. It was quite hard to find the garage. Both my dad and myself had never visited the city of Sittard before. Finally we managed to find it with the aid of some friendly pedestrians. The car was parked outside on the parking lot of the garage. After looking at the car outside for about 15 minutes we pushed the car on the bridge to look at it from beneath. The last yearly check up (APK) was last valid till the 19^th of June 1999. It had been standing still for a very….very long time. As usual with the Alfasud the inboard front brakes were stuck, however with some help of the Frijsinger personnel it was on the bridge quickly. Since it had been standing still for such a long time there was no meaning to try to start the engine. Of course the car showed rust, but all in all it made a salvageable impression. The RH inner fender was completely gone which is a typical Alfasud issue. The windshield frame showed some rust, the engine bonnet showed some rust, the luggage compartment windows showed rust at the bottom and the boot showed some rust, but that was about it for the visible rust.

What worried me more was the fact that the car had been transformed into a Sud TI of the last series. The original chrome bumpers had been replaced with the plastic TI ones of the 3rd series Alfasud with side indicators. The chrome rear view mirror was replaced by a plastic last type Sud one, the dashboard had been replaced with a later one with centre console, a sunroof was fitted, skirts of an Alfa 33 type 3 were added and the fake leather black seats had been replaced by Alfasud TI QV seats. In summary there were a lot of non original features. Possibly the most shocking modification was the purple Volkswagen colour “Dusty Mauve”. Although the car was far from it’s original state I decided to buy it because it was a good base. A feature which pleases me a lot is the fact that the car has it's original Dutch licence plates. In the Netherlands you can see the age of a car by the licence plate. This vehicle has been in the Netherlands from it's first road registration which was in April 1978.

Giardinetta from front, lowered after vehicle inspection from underneath.	Giardinetta from side.
Giardinetta from rear.	View on the way back home after deciding to buy the Giardinetta.

On that day I made a down payment on the car because I couldn’t take the car with me yet. I had to go back to work in Japan and therefore left it at “garage Frijsinger” to come and pick it up in early 2009. On the same day I contacted the “Centro Storico” of Alfa Romeo to find out the origin and details of my new purchase. The next day April 30^th 2008 I received the reply from Marco Fazio of the Centro Storico.