I've been rebuilding my neglected 2011 Alfa Romeo Giulietta 1750 TBi over the past few months.
I remember when these first came out and thinking, 'hell yeah, I want one of those!'; a 235 horsepower hatchback that shared a drivetrain with a mid-engined rear-wheel-drive carbon fibre sports car. At £24,000, whilst cheap by today's standards, they were far beyond my budget as a young professional.
Fast forward to a few months back; a close friend got in touch to let me know he was selling his. The head gasket was blown, and it was suffering from years of care-free every-day use and a lack of routine maintenance. I don't begrudge him, he bought it as a cheap, ultimately disposable, but fun, runaround.
I'm almost at the point when I'll find out if my efforts have all been in vain! Whatever the outcome, it's been a brilliant experience getting stuck in with a modern turbocharged engine. It's been a very different experience to working on the older stuff; lots of sensors, finer tolerances and so on.