Dwindling (was: GTV6s in use)

["John Hertzman" <johnhertzman@domain.elided>]

George Graves' most recent post on the GTV 6 question starts "Makes one wonder
how many are still on the road. They only built about 22,000 in all 5 years of
production" and ends "I'd love to know approximately how many are actually on
the road, world-wide."

The year-by-year production numbers in d'Amico & Tabucchi split off the Tipo
116.69 cars (with cat, for USA and German markets) from the 116 C and 116 CA
cars made for other markets. For the non-cat cars they give complete ranges,
beginning number to ending number for each year, but for the USA/Germany cat
cars they unfortunately just give the beginning number and 'onwards' for each
year, Alfa as they sometimes did starting each model year with an arbitrary
round number (Model year 1981 00001001 in avanti, '82 00002001 in avanti, '83
00005001 in avanti - - - ). There are some loose ends beyond that in their
numbers, but it appears that the C and CA cars totaled about 15,300 and the
cat-equipped USA/Germany cars totaled about 7,000. Near-useless numbers, but
grist for a further round of idle speculation. Have another beer.

Numbers "actually on the road, world-wide" introduces a couple of wild cards.
Few other markets treat any durable goods as throw-aways quite as freely as we
do, but (as George forever reiterates) no other markets are bereft of an
endless supply of legally purchasable state-of-the-art replacements for tatty
twenty-year-olds which have to be either refurbished and maintained or junked
and replaced. (There is Cuba, of course.) My wild guess, as unfounded as
anyone else's, is that there probably aren't 2,000 GTV6s running, worldwide,
about half in the USA and half elsewhere, and I wouldn't be surprised if it
was far fewer.

A sad but inescapable truth is that few people will willingly and knowingly
spend appreciably more on thoroughly refurbishing a car than they think the
car might be "worth" on the open market. Full derust, proper paint,
reupholster, trimfettle, and comprehensive mechanical restoration? On a GTV 6?
Or a Milano, or a 164? How many of each will be presentable, reliable,
cherished daily drivers ten years from now?

Rhetorical question, of course. Enjoy yours,

John H.
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