Comprising 20 ‘open letters from a part-time petrolhead,’ Alfa Mail looks at much more than the Alfa Romeo marque. Cars, aircraft, motorcycles – even tractors – feature in this irreverently personal view of internal combustion, ‘the great enabler,’ for better or worse. Or maybe just for fun. This book goes beyond the normal car book format, exploring what made Alfa special, and questioning the future of the marque is important or relevant in today’s world.
Alfa Mail is about Alfa Romeos. What made them great – and what will probably make them extinct. It’s also about other cars too – great, good, bad and appalling – plus planes, bikes, places, people, prejudice ... and tractors.
Motor vehicles are the greatest practical enablers of the 20th Century (even IT can’t physically take us to Hollywood, or hospital), and stir our emotions like few other artefacts.
Artefacts and their creators make history. Thus, this book is also about great endeavours and sad whimpers. About inspired artists, dedicated engineers, reckless drivers, and intellectually barren marketing people.
Fortunately, for sanity’s sake, this book is also quite happy to take the piss.
And Alfa enthusiasts are used to jokes.
Combines scholarship with unbridled prejudice. Occasionally makes Clarkson seem strangely reasonable. - A.H. Davis
Alfa Mail: an Alfa book that isn’t just about Alfas
