MANGOLETSI.COM

VEHICLE ownership, for most people, is a matter of convenient transport, but for 58-year-old Chris Ball buying and driving Alfa Romeos has become a lifelong passion.

‘It started when I was a lad, my dad bought a boxy 1750cc Giulia Berlina in Dutch Blue,’ he explained. ‘I suppose I saw it as quite exotic, the name sounded great, it had five gears and there weren’t many about.’

Chris, now living in Axnfell Lane in Laxey, has owned 15 Alfas – at one point he owned five at once; a Spider, a GTV6, a 33 Permanent 4, a 33 1.5 Veloce and a Bertone Coupe.

However, the dream of owning his own Alfa had to wait until he had found his feet in his new career as a solicitor in Wigan.

‘Actually my first car was a 1.5-litre Riley which I bought from a lady in Peel. It wasn’t until I was about 25 that I got my first Alfa – an Alfasud. In the early days I bought quite a few old examples, primarily because they had a reputation for rusting away and consequently were very cheap to buy.’

An island resident and well known motoring journalist – Jeremy Clarkson – once said that you can’t call yourself a true petrolhead until you have owned an Alfa. If that’s true then Chris could well have premium unleaded pumping his entire circulatory system.

‘I decided early on that rather than trading them in I would just keep them. At the time I was living in a farmhouse which had a large barn which, as you might imagine, was filled with Alfa Romeos.

‘I had five on the go at once,’ said Chris, a part-time lawyer for Douglas firm Simcocks.

‘My favourite was the GTV6. I had a sports exhaust fitted and it sounded wonderful. I dreamt of bringing back to the Isle of Man and giving it a good thrashing round the TT track.’

A dream sadly unrequited thanks to a VW Golf which failed to stop at a T-junction and wrote off his precious red GTV6.

So what of the future are there any plans for another model to add to the collection?

‘Actually I have just returned from a 200-mile round trip to my favourite Alfa Romeo dealership Mangoletsi in Knutsford [Cheshire] to pick up my latest car. It’s a Giulietta 1.4 with a multi-air engine, the first, I believe, of its type in the island.’

Fraser Hudson, managing director of Mangoletsi, said: ‘It just goes to show the loyalty Alfas command when someone is prepared to travel so far to buy one.’

But which out of all did he love the most?

‘It has to be the GTV6 in red with the sports exhaust, there’s unfinished business there.’