In the late-Sixties, Bob Merchant was a young architect who’d just helped design Chicago’s O’Hare airport. Looking for a new job, Merchant and his wife Carol packed up their Fiat 124 and drove west, headed towards Portland and Seattle. However, Carol had family in Western Canada, and on their way they stopped in Calgary to visit her cousins.
When Merchant learned a new airport was planned for Calgary, he applied for a job with the firm of Stevenson Raines. He got the job, and the couple began a new life in the city – and in short order, that involved getting a new car.
“I used to take my Fiat to Cannataro Motors for service,” Merchant says. “And Frank (Cannataro) didn’t have (a waiting area) at his garage. Instead, he had three or four new Alfa Romeos, and you could sit in a driver’s seat while you waited.
“Frank would walk by and say, ‘That GTV looks pretty good on you, Mr. Merchant.’”
As a sales technique, it worked. Merchant needed to replace his rusting Fiat, but instead of the two-door GTV, he’d asked Cannataro to get him a four-door Alfa Romeo Berlina in red.
“Soon, Frank called and said, ‘Your car is here’,” Merchant recalls. “When we showed up to pick it up, it was a red GTV, and not the Berlina. But Carol said it was a really nice-looking car, and two doors instead of a sedan would be fine.”
That was in April 1974, and the GTV has been with the Merchants ever since.
In the first few years of ownership, the GTV was their only vehicle. While Merchant could walk to work downtown, Carol drove the car daily to her teaching job in Forest Lawn.
“I’d been going to a few auto races, and decided to get involved with the Calgary Sports Car Club,” Merchant explains.
In the mid-Seventies, the club held slalom events on an old airstrip at Mount Royal College. Merchant discovered the Alfa Romeo GTV was not only a great daily driver, but it was also a competitive vehicle. With each event he entered, he gained valuable driving skills and often won.
For some history, Alfa Romeo revealed its all-new 105-Series Giulia Sprint GT coupe in 1963. Equipped with a four-cylinder all-aluminum twin-cam engine and five-speed transmission, the car had been designed by Giorgetto Giuglaro of Bertone. Its exterior design was different for Alfa Romeo, as the coupe now featured a pronounced trunk and a new front end with quad headlights. Although not immediately popular, the car gained sales traction and was updated again in 1966 to become the Giulia Sprint GT Veloce, or the GTV.
The model evolved to become, in 1972, the 2000 GT Veloce. It got a new grille, and behind that, an enlarged engine that grew from 1750cc to 1962cc. The double overhead cam engine made 132 horsepower and, for North American-bound models, featured a Spica mechanical fuel injection system With disc brakes at each corner and a well-tuned chassis, the live rear axle with limited slip differential kept the car straight and true on smooth pavement.
Merchant says, “Full independent rear suspension, like that found on BMW’s 2002, is better on rough surfaces, but on smooth pavement the GTV was untouchable. The four-wheel disc brakes are huge, and you’ll never get the brakes to fade on an Alfa Romeo.”
As Merchant became increasingly competitive, the GTV became his ‘baby.’ In the meantime, an Alfa Romeo Berlina was purchased for Carol to drive on a daily basis.
This car sounds so good when you’re driving it.
“I began to modify the GTV with stiffer springs and also did some engine work to increase the compression from 9:1 to 10:1,” he says. “I did a little bit of the work with Frank (Cannataro) advising me, but he did most of the important jobs.”
The car has been restored, and that happened after Merchant managed to touch a concrete wall while racing at the now-defunct Race City Motorsport Park. To fix the damage, the car went to a trusted autobody shop where some areas of rust, including in the rocker panels and wheel arches, was cut out and replaced with fresh panels. It was repainted in the original Alfa Romeo red.
With 162,000 miles on the odometer, the GTV has been driven as far as Mexico, and has toured 32 states and six provinces. Merchant says while he’s a retired architect, the GTV is now semi-retired. He still attends competitions, most often in Portland or Seattle, and will drive the GTV to Jasper or Banff for a day trip.
This winter, the GTV has been parked on display indoors at Alfa Romeo of Calgary, where it serves as a visual reminder of the automaker’s history. Merchant has no plans to sell the car, and has been working on polishing many of the stainless-steel trim pieces.
He says, “This car sounds so good when you’re driving it, and looks so sharp when it’s all clean and detailed.”
Greg Williams is a member of the Automobile Journalists Association of Canada (AJAC). Have a column tip? Contact him at 403-287-1067 or gregwilliams@shaw.ca
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