For the 11th month in a row, the New Jersey Chapter of the Alfa Romeo Owner’s Club (AROC-NJ) held its monthly breakfast meet, returning to a favorite eatery, the Americana Diner in Shrewsbury, NJ. Our autumnal weather continues to grace us with sunshine and warm temperatures, and this past Sunday the 17th of November was no exception.
We made our way into the diner a little bit after 9 a.m., but we were far short of the expected headcount. That was soon remedied when the remainder of those who had registered for breakfast arrived to fill out our reserved table. The food and drink were greatly enjoyed, and although the diner was getting crowded, the wait staff didn’t act as though they were in any hurry to shoo us out the door. One waitress, obliging my request, was only too happy to take my camera and snap the obligatory group photo.
The fun continued after we exited the building. We hung around our Alfas, old and new, and continued our conversations. Vic delighted us by showing his new-to-him 1966 Giulia Super sedan, an amazingly original car. The cloth interior was nicely preserved, and the engine compartment looked like it had not been tampered with, down to the fuses which Vic claimed were original. At some time in its past, the car had been repainted, and top coat did not adhere well, perhaps due to poor prep work. We debated the pros and cons of a repaint, with the consensus agreeing that the car probably should be brought back down to bare metal and treated to a quality respray.
Parked next to Alex’s red Duetto was a very rare Alfa Romeo prototype. A club member who prefers to remain anonymous said that he was given the chance to drive Alfa’s new electric SUV. In order to disguise the beautiful Italian styling, the engineers hung sheets of flat steel roofing they bought at Home Depot over the entire car. Their intent was to use the camouflage to create “the ugliest car on the road” as a way to deceive the public. We unanimously agreed that they had succeeded.
The Americana parking lot is small, and cars kept pouring into the lot looking for spots, of which there were none. We finally decided that we needed to get out of the way, so our chit-chat was over for the day. The NJ Chapter meets next month in December, which will make it 12 consecutive monthly breakfast meets.
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