The seller of today’s Nice Price or No Dice Milano asks that no offers be made on the car until it is seen in person. Before we get that personal, we’ll have to decide how good his offer — and the car — is, to begin with.
As a child, if you’ve ever been sent to summer camp you may have at one time or another been duped by one of that camp’s counselors into the fool’s errand of a “snipe hunt.” Now that we’re all grown-ups, we can endeavor to undertake our own quixotic quests. One such might be finding greenhouse glass for an obscure gray-market import that had suffered damage in a hail storm.
That was the problem facing any new owner of the 1995 Renault Twingo we investigated yesterday. At its $2,500 asking, the car looked initially to be a solid deal. Delving into the details, however, we saw that the car’s hail damage had left it open to the elements and unlikely to pass a state safety inspection should one be needed. Finding the replacement glass would prove a daunting — and likely expensive — task. That prospect ended up with both the comments and the 56 percent No Dice vote leaning against its undertaking.
As we discussed yesterday, Renault never sold the Twingo in the U.S. By the time of the little car’s debut, Renault had, in fact, stopped selling anything under its brand name here in the States. The late ’80s to early ’90s proved to be a tough time in the U.S. for a lot of foreign carmakers. It was at this time that, due to financial difficulties, the U.S. saw the disappearance of car companies like Daihatsu, Peugeot, Yugo, and the subject of today’s contemplation, Alfa Romeo.
This 1988 Alfa Romeo Milano Verde Quadrifoglio certainly has a long and tongue-twisting moniker. Perhaps that was why it wasn’t more successful in America. In Europe, the model was simply known as the 75. That’s unlikely since most people took to just calling the cars “Milanos.”
The Milano debuted in 1985, riding on a chassis that owed a great debt to the preceding Alfetta model. Like that previous car, the Milano rocked a torsion bar front suspension and a sophisticated de Dion rear suspension wrapped around the rear-mounted transaxle. Unlike the Alfetta sedan, however, the Milano in the U.S. was powered exclusively by V6 engines.
Being a Verde makes this one the ultimate edition, replacing the standard Milano’s 2.5-liter Busso V6 with 3-liter version. That makes 183 horsepower to the lower-echelon model’s 154. Behind that — way behind, in fact — is a five-speed manual in the transaxle.
The ad claims the seller to be the second owner, having bought the car from the original owner’s estate in 2016. It apparently spent most of its life with that OG owner in Southern California where was babied. Based on the option sheet the seller has shared, it was originally sold by Wegge Motor Cars in Pasadena, California, one of that town’s oldest family-owned dealerships.
There are 160,000 miles on the car and while the seller claims it to have been well cared for during their ownership, they do note it exhibiting the kind of wear and tear one might expect of a car of its advanced age.
Having spent most of those advancing years in sunny Southern California, the car presents as rust-free. The Nero paint looks perfectly serviceable and favors the Milano’s design by masking a lot of the extraneous body lines its designers felt were needed. The black plastic trim strip that runs from the leading edge of the front fender to the spoiler on the boot is all intact but does look like it’s turning an ashy gray as such things do. The car is pictured with aftermarket 15-inch wheels but comes with the factory phone dials too.
The interior presents in a similar fashion with some wear evident on the cloth-covered Recaro seats and some curling of the floor mats. A Momo steering wheel and shift knob liven up the place, as does the factory Frankenstein switch hand brake lever. All the major elements are there and seemingly in usable condition. The boot contains the rare factory tool kit and hard storage lockers. Those alone make this car more desirable than your standard Milano.
Not everything is Peaches and Herb here though. The seller does an admirable job of attempting to present the car accurately, warts and all. That description notes a number of small niggling problems that abound. Included in those are the non-working driver’s side power mirror, sunroof, and windshield washer. Other problems are a funky ARC panel, a bad start-up injector, and some boot lid springs that may let the lid bonk you on the head if you’re not careful. On the plus side, the car comes with a number of extra parts (always helpful with any Alfa) and has had the timing belt plus a bunch of suspension and exhaust work already done. An ABS delete has also been undertaken.
The seller claims the car drives well and is only selling it to free up garage space as they don’t want to have any member of the fleet banished outdoors. There are a ton of maintenance and repair receipts that come with it along with the car and all those extra parts. The asking price is $8,500 and the seller requests that no one drop an offer on the car until seeing it in the metal.
Now that we know all there is to know about this hot Milano, what do you think such a thing might be worth? Could it really command that $8,500 asking? Or, does that price mean this Quadrifoglio’s luck has run out?
You decide!
Seattle, Washington, Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
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