A racing Alfetta GTV, circa 1979

I think you've seen this, but here it is again... Amaroo Park... nice racing GTV. Here it is apexing at what I call 'Volvo corner', the hard right into the short 'main' straight before the uphill to the blind left hander into 'The Loop'. But where is it now?

Changed the oil, oh joy. And broke the exhaust

On the good side the GTV has been humming along, touch wood. I need to lean it out a bit but it starts and runs well, even if it gobbles the gas a bit. Not that it costs much to run - it's only done 2,000 km in 2 years. But it needed an oil change, so it got one, bless its little 2litre soul.

What was a little unexpected was the increasingly noisy exhaust. I've been taking it to local bike races (criterium bike in boot) at Wyong, an 80km round trip. It's been sounding a little too good lately and it all came to an end on the overrun down Kariong hill into West Gosford. You know that hollow pop-pop-pop sound that you get with a rich mixture on overrun? Well I was enjoying that down the hill when it went pop-pop-crack-bang-rattle instead. It proceeded to rattle and rasp with a metallic twang all the way home. Oh well, a baffle has broken, I thought.

Indeed it was the centre offset silencer. Cheap and quick to fix and another adventure for this Alfa owner. Muffla-Fit at West Gosford is a crazy Dante's inferno of showering sparks in a tiny factory unit but Steve did a good job and - gasp - it sounds like new again. Well like a GTV4 with a slightly bigger diameter exhaust, anyway.