A Victoria auto dealer is bringing some Italian pizzazz to the region with a new Alfa Romeo dealership opening in November.
Peter Trzewik has imported a new Alfa Romeo 4C to whet the appetite of local drivers. The red sportscar will be featured in the showroom window of the Roderick Street dealership, just off Douglas Street’s Auto Alley in the former Harley Davidson space.
Trzewik, chief executive of the GAIN Vancouver Island’s Premier Auto Group, said heads turn when the hand-built-in-Italy 4C is on the road. “This one is not for sale. This one is really just to demonstrate the car,” said Trzewik, who bought it for the manufacturer’s price of $82,500. “I think the market is ready for a little bit of an Italian flavour.”
Alfa Romeo’s history dates back to 1910, when it began under the name Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili, manufacturing its first cars near Milan. Its race cars, luxury sports cars, sedans, and design standards have forged a global reputation.
The brand is in the process of moving back into the North America market after leaving in the mid-1990s, in a push to increase global sales. Alfa Romeo is now part of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. The company is planning to unveil a total of eight new models within the next couple of years. It started with the Alfa Romeo 4C sportscar and, in June, the company unveiled the Alfa Romeo Giulia sedan, which will be for sale next year.
Trzewik said a second automotive brand will be added at the new dealership in the spring, but refused to give details.
He did note that an Italian theme, with espresso coffee and Italian-made furniture, is at the core of the new dealership.
Initially, the operation will have up to seven staff, which could grow to about 15 in two years, he said.
GAIN’s current Island dealerships include Audi Autohaus, Three Point Motors, Porsche Centre Victoria, Volkswagen Victoria, BMW Victoria and MINI Victoria, BMW Nanaimo and MINI Nanaimo, Mercedes-Benz Nanaimo, and Subaru of Nanaimo.
The company is spending between $35 million and $40 million to buy, develop and upgrade properties, Trzewik said.
A March report prepared for the New Car Dealers Association of B.C. estimated the total annual average expenditure by members on renovation and construction is estimated at $97 million. That work results in 991 full-time-equivalent jobs per year, the report said.
Provincial gross domestic product generated by B.C.’s new car dealership operations spending was $1.9 billion in 2013, up by five per cent from 2010.
Association members have 16,005 employees and are responsible for another 8,584 direct jobs, the report said.
GAIN has 310 employees and expects that to increase once its Vancouver Island Motorsport Resort in the Cowichan Valley opens in spring 2016. Construction costs alone are expected to reach $22 million, Trzewik said.
The 19-hectare automotive resort will allow members to test their vehicles on a high-performance, private course.
It’s being designed by Germany’s Tilke Engineers and Architects, a world authority in track design, test facilities and driving clubs. Construction of the first phase of the 2.3-kilometre track (expandable to 4.2 kilometres) at 4063 Cowichan Valley Hwy., near Mount Prevost, is underway by Triple T Excavating and SupErb Construction.
The year-round resort surrounded by coastal wilderness and close to fine dining and a partner hotel is about more than the track where a Porsche GT3 could reach a top speed of 184 kilometres per hour.
The resort will also have a 15,000-square-foot, two-storey complex housing a clubhouse, presentation centre, observation deck and four pit garages with high-tech setup bays and staging areas.
Members would have options such as having their classic automobiles made track-ready by partners Rudi Company and Coachwerks.
GAIN is also upgrading Three Point Motors and expanding its area by about 40 per cent.
A new body shop is being built at 508-518 Hillside Ave., and 2929 Douglas St. has been purchased as the site of a new Audi showroom in two to three years, Trzewik said. This follows last year’s spring opening of a $5.2-million new Porsche showroom and service facility at 737 Audley St.
Sales of new vehicles in Canada are forecast to reach 1.855 million this year, up from 1.851 million last year, according to Scotiabanks’s Global Auto Report in June.
May sales hit a monthly record, fuelled by a 20 per cent increase in purchases of luxury cars and light trucks, it said. — Carla Wilson
ADRIAN CHAMBERLAIN: ‘Mobile piece of art’ provides one of life’s great experiences
Few reporters at the Times Colonist know less about cars than me. That’s why it was a surprising — and thrilling — to be chosen to test-drive that sex-on-wheels sportscar known as the Alfa Romeo 4C.
Why was I selected? Because our real automotive writer is on vacation. Plus I’m the owner of a 1988 Alfa Romeo Spider. In the world of newspapers, that’s considered a bona fide credential (aka the Peter Principle).
This particular Alfa 4C is destined for the showroom of Victoria’s new Alfa Romeo dealership this fall. The car is a ground-hugging, mobile artwork that looks like it escaped from George Clooney’s Lake Como villa.
Amazingly, the dealership folk not only let a novice drive it, they trusted me enough not to provide operating instructions. They just handed over the key, which snaps out of its fob like a switchblade. No doubt they assumed I know something about 237-horsepower, turbo-charged, flaming-red Italian sportscars with ultra-lightweight carbon-fibre bodies.
I do not. It took TC photographer Bruce Stotesbury and me five minutes to figure out how to even get the thing started and in gear.
It’s an astonishingly beautiful car. When it comes to style, you can’t beat the Italians. Someone once said the old Alfa spiders (like mine) were so streamlined, they seemed to have been squeezed through a toothpaste tube.
But the Alfa 4C is something entirely different. The styling is inspired by Alfa’s 1967 33 Stradale, a low-slug creature considered by some the most beautiful car ever made. The 4C is reminiscent of 1960s Ferraris and Lamborghinis, yet it looks completely modern as well.
It’s so low to the ground, clambering inside requires a slight effort. The back window is ridiculously tiny. The luggage compartment is minuscule, capable of containing a few bottles of champagne and a leather jacket. None of this matters a whit — who buys an Alfa sportscar to be practical?
As I drove gingerly off the lot, trying not to hit immovable objects, a middle-aged couple stared. “How do you like my new car?” I said.
“It’s beautiful,” they said.
I was tempted to do the varoom-varoom thing Hugh Grant did in Bridget Jones’s Diary, but resisted the urge.
Lacking technical knowledge, my Alfa 4C report is mostly about the sensations one experiences as a driver. For instance, the sounds this car makes are incredible. Even inching along traffic on Douglas Street, a touch to the accelerator triggers an incredible throaty rumble. People on buses strained to look. A 10-year-old kid in a van stared at me. I gave him the thumbs up.
Driving up the entrance-ramp to the Pat Bay Highway, the Alfa opened up and hurtled forward with a tremendous roar, like a lion badly annoyed by the antics of Siegfried and Roy. Aside from my wedding day, the birth of our daughter and getting a primo seat for the Rolling Stones, this single experience might rate as the best in my life.
The Alfa 4C has two shifting modes: automatic and paddle shifters on the steering wheel. Having never used a paddle shifter, and not wanting to ruin a perfectly good exotic automobile, I kept it on automatic. It’s not the same as shifting, you don’t have the same sense of control. But surprisingly, the feel and sound of the engine replicates a manual shift.
If the 4C was a musical instrument, it would be a Hammond B-3 organ. It roars, shrieks, howls, splatters and splutters in the most organic-sounding way. I understand there’s a race exhaust option for 4C — I assume this car was outfitted for one.
The sportscar is not for the faint of heart. If you don’t want to be noticed, buy a BMW 4 series or something. If you want to have pure driving fun (and your wallet is sufficiently fat), the 4C will not disappoint. There’s nothing quite like an Alfa Romeo.
