The Pick of the Day is a 1971 Alfa Romeo Montreal listed by a St. Louis, Missouri dealership on ClassicCars.com.
Many concept cars are created with passion, received by the public with eyes wide and mouths agape, and stored away with no hope of making it into production. The two show cars that Alfa Romeo displayed at the 1967 International and Universal Exposition and led to the Montreal road car managed to escape such a fate.
In the lead-up to Expo 67 in Montreal, Canada, event organizers selected Alfa Romeo to make a car that represented the “highest aspiration of modern man in terms of cars,” according to FCAHeritage.com. Given that they only had nine months to create an instant icon, the Italian automaker chose its Giulia Sprint GT as the foundation, then outsourced the bodywork to Carrozzeria Bertone.
Alfa’s showpiece wound up in the hands of a young designer by the name of Marcello Gandini (who penned the legendary Lamborghini Miura and went on to stun the automotive world with its successor, the Countach, among other masterpieces). He created a pair of pearl white concepts with louvered partial headlight covers, distinctive stacked vents behind each L-shaped door, and a Kamm tail.
Those two cars, aka the Alfa Romeo Montreal Expo, were displayed at the entrance of Expo 67 in the “Man the Producer” pavilion. Alfa management was so taken by them that they green-lighted the design for mass production.
While not everything from the one-offs made it across the great divide between car show specials and consumer vehicles, the appropriately named Montreal was satisfyingly similar in design to the concepts that inspired it. It was also more powerful. Once again, Alfa went into its parts bin, this time pulling out the 33 Stradale’s V8, which they enlarged to 2.6 liters and detuned to 200 horsepower to make it more friendly for everyday driving. Other changes include an increase in ride height and a color palette with options such as Verde Termico and Marrone Luci Di Bosco.
Ultimately, Alfa Romeo only produced 3,925 Montreals between 1970 and 1977, none of which were officially sold in the United States. Luckily, the restored 1971 specimen shown here was brought into the country in 2018 and comes with its tool kit, certificate of origin, homologation certificate, other paperwork, and literature. Its Rosso red paint makes its immediately recognizable body even more eye-catching, but is tempered by the low-key 14-inch Campagnolo wheels.
A similar contrast is present in the cockpit, where the wood steering wheel rim and red carpeting add flashes of brightness around the black fabric seats, dashboard, and door panels.
The front-hinged hood conceals the small V8, which comes equipped with SPICA (Società Pompe Iniezione Cassani & Affini) fuel injection and connected to a ZF five-speed manual gearbox.
In a way, the Montreal hasn’t fundamentally changed. It started as a show car (X2) and if you buy this one for the $79,500 asking price, thanks to the Montreal’s relatively low production numbers and Gandini styling, it’ll be the star of any local car show you attend.
Click here to view the listing for this Pick of the Day on ClassicCars.com.
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