Whoah crap, didn’t know this was a thing but I think I win. I had a 2001 Wrangler with an automatic and I was an absolute menace in the thing. I figured out that I could slam the gas midcorner and it would slam down a gear enough to spin the rear tires and I could drift through the corner a decent way. There was also…

I work at an Alfa/Fiat dealer in Alabama and the main reason we have old Stelvios is because Alfa shipped them in huge batches right when it came out. Instead of getting them periodically throughout the year, we got nearly 100 of them early on. The ones they sent were also strange packages that nobody in their right…

I mean, 2019 is the first model year for the Miata to have higher horsepower than the 124. In 2018, the 124 had more power and gobs more torque. Seems like we’re talking about this like it happened 5 years ago or something. Mazda announced the HP bump in June, that’s hardly enough time for Fiat to switch engines for…

Sweet, I can’t wait to get calls from my dad to walk him through how his tailgate works twice a week, forever.

You can also order a 124 Spider with a red top just to throw that out there

That is correct, they don’t lease for crap. I’m not remotely arguing that point but it’s because Alfa isn’t paying the banks to buy down the rates on them like they do on the standard Giulia or Stelvio or like every company does for just about every lease. Nothing to do with residuals, those are pretty strong.

Whoa whoah, Tom can we please take a moment to just cut off any bad information right at the start? I work at an Alfa dealer and the reason the leases suck on QVs is because they are on “Standard lease rates” instead of incentivized lease rates. Every lease on the planet just about is incentivized. In fact, it…

Wow, you guys know that dealers have only had any significant quantity of Giulias since March, right? Also, low number of dealers to sell them from, a totally new car, and a brand that’s unfamiliar to most. I don’t think anybody with a brain actually thought we’d be socking it to BMW the first few months. As an…

I love that the speedometer even only goes 136mph, that’s reallllll fast and furious. This is just great, somebody legitimately took a photo of a crappy Suzuki’s dash after turning the key on, without even starting it up, and then just photoshopped the needles all the way up. There’s so much wrong with that. First…

I work at a Maserati and Alfa Romeo dealer and I am willing to bet the guy was only at the Lamborghini dealer to talk about how much he loves his mustang. I swear 4 out of 5 Mustang drivers that come by our store are just absolute tools. They’ll look at a 4C and just tell everybody that it’s cool and all but they…

Oh wow, that’s rough!

I’m at Maserati/Alfa/Fiat of Birmingham in Alabama. I know of that dealer, they have had a couple but right now they’re sitting on two automatic non-Abarths so they’re not exactly getting flooded with them.

I work at a Fiat dealer and I’m jealous you got to drive a manual 124, we can’t get the freakin things. Might have one in a few months. Maybe. And it’s already sold.

Umm Abarths, 124s, Alfa 4Cs, Giulia QVs (soon, probably I think maybe), Wranglers, Vipers, Hellcats, hell even the base Fiat 500 Pop in with a manual is one of the more smile-inducing economy cars you’ll ever drive. You can complain about the reliability if you want but they make a fairly low percentage of dull cars.…

Okay, now we need one on the bullshit customers come up with, that would be just as entertaining! (admittedly, only to people who have worked in the car business)

Oooh this one’s easy: plurals! This is especially fun with the more uptight following of whatever brand.

I don’t have a photo on me unfortunately but Fiat manuals have been coming with a tag somewhat similar to that for years, especially the Abarths and Turbos because there’s no reverse syncro. If you just throw it into reverse and try to go, especially on a cold startup, you’ll get grinding and sometimes it’ll pop out…

I work at a Fiat/Alfa/Maserati dealer and I cannot begin to tell you how many phone calls we get from these companies since we’ve obviously been listed as the owner of countless cars over the years. It always goes the same way, I answer the phone: “Alfa Romeo and Fiat of Birmingham, how may I help you?” Of course that…

I never even understood the blurring your license plate online thing. Thousands of strangers every day can see your license plate and those are people that are actually geographically close to you. Who gives a crap if someone on the other side of the country or even across the globe knows your plate number??

It was an IIHS Top Safety Pick when it came out in 2012. Same car in 2015. I can name about 6 people that have had MAJOR wrecks in their Fiat 500s and all replaced that car with a new one. They do remarkably well in real world crashes, it just hasn’t been redesigned for the front overlap test, which you literally have…