Although the UK seems to have been blessed with lots of sunny weather for the past few months, there has been rain, and some of it quite heavy. It seems that it has come, right on cue, on the second Thursday of just about every month in 2014, with the result that Italian Car night at the Ace Cafe has been one disappointment after another. Sadly, the forecasters suggested that August could see even more troubled by a summer downpour than was the case in preceding months, and sure enough, during the afternoon, it lashed it down for a good 30 minutes just at the time when people might have been contemplating getting their car ready to take and show off. Another shower around 5 pm probably sealed the fate of this event, and although it had more or less stopped when I arrived at 6pm, there were just 5 cars parked up, 4 of them Abarths and an Alfa. There were only 3 bikes, far fewer than I’ve ever seen present before. 30 minutes later, and the numbers had barely grown, and as the evening passed, although a few more cars did arrive, this amounted to the least well attended evening that I can recall in quite a while. Just as well that there were enough Abarthisti friends present to chat to, or I guess I would not have stayed long. I did take pictures of pretty much everything present. There was nothing particularly unusual at all.
ABARTH
Modern Abarths dominated the event, with more of them present than any other marque. All were 500-based cars except Will Webb’s much loved Punto SuperSport.
ALFA ROMEO
By mid evening there were 4 examples of the 147GTA, making it the most popular Alfa model of the evening, which is perhaps not quite what you would expect.
This 155 looked quite smart, but there was something not quite right about the very scarlet paintwork, which I don’t believe was an original Alfa colour.
Other Alfas included a regular 147, and the top version of its replacement, a Giulietta Cloverleaf, as well as 156 and a Brera-based Spider
FIAT
There were only three Fiat models present: a couple of Coupes and a Croma.
And that was it. Such a pity that the weather deterred so many. I’ll be away in September, and by October, the evening daylight will be much reduced, so perhaps I have to start hoping that 2015 will bring better weather at least on the second Thursday evenings of each month.
