The Concept Car Alfa Romeo Actually Built

Alfa Romeo didn't set out to build the Montreal. Bertone built a styling concept for Expo 67 in Montreal — no engine, no name, just a shape — and the response from the public was loud enough that Alfa decided to build it for real. The car ended up carrying the host city's name simply because that's what everyone had already started calling it.

When production finally started in 1970, Alfa gave the show car a genuine engine to match its looks: a 2.6-liter quad-cam V8, derived from the Tipo 33 racing program, fed by SPICA mechanical fuel injection. It's a small-displacement, high-revving V8 in a package most people expect to find a four or a six — part of what makes the Montreal an oddity even among Alfas. Bertone kept the concept's signatures on the production car too: the NACA duct cut into the hood and the slatted covers over the headlights that retract like eyelids at speed.

This example has had more than $60,000 put into its restoration and wears a striking Arancio Orange finish that suits the car's shape better than a photograph gives it credit for. It was good enough to take Best in Class at The Quail — and it comes with a piece of provenance most Montreals can't claim: the car was featured in Playboy magazine in 2016, and a copy of that issue is included in the sale.

Alfa Romeo built very few Montreals — and built this specific one's story just as carefully.