ob Simonds’ article was indeed good for a laugh, reminding me of how unaware of foreign cars and Alfas in particular most people in the rural South were when I grew up.

But the urban areas were always a bit more sophisticated. My brother was the sales manager for "Madison Smith, Naturally" in Nashville which sold Alfa, Porsche, M-B, Fiat, Maserati, BMW, and Borgward (anybody remember them?)—all the European cars. I used to get the occasional job of delivering cars like Ferraris and big M-Bs to customers in the rural South. Amazingly, my brother sold half a dozen Ferraris annually. At one point, we ran about ten SCCA cars out of the dealership: a Porsche 904, an Alfa GTA, three Abarths and at least four Giulia and Giulietta Spiders, including ours. Continental Cars in Memphis ran a Giulia Super and another GTA.

It was amazing, however, how many very good shops were out in the boonies. I remember buying a Conrero-prepared Giulietta Sprint that ran the Mille Miglia from a guy who worked out of a barn about 20 miles west of Huntsville. The local Abarth specialist was another barn-based shop about 30 miles southeast of Nashville, and he had a neighbor who is still restoring and racing Porsches.

One of the top Alfa racers and prep shops was in the basement of Rasey Feezel’s house in Oak Ridge, and I was building race engines for a number of local racers from our family garage in Goodlettesville, north of Nashville.

Not all of the car nuts were into drags, stock cars or running moonshine, in spite of the reputation of the area. Just remember that when we lived in Boston, I used to always call New Hampshire "The Alabama of the North."

Regards,

(Now in the mountain boonies—of California!)