In 1978 my late father bought our Montreal second-hand with only one previous owner in Göttingen, Germany, at the Fleischhacker Alfa dealership. He and my mother regularly attended the European meetings every year with the car.
It took me a couple of years after my father died to work up the courage to try to start her up and take her to the annual inspection. When I finally did, she started up after some convincing and I took her to the inspection where they proceeded to do a shock absorber test which rattled something out of place and the car had to sit there in the yard for three days until the only man capable of repairing Montreals in central Finland was able to pick her up and get her running again.
At the time I was living in London and planned to store the Montreal in Switzerland, to where I could fly in only 1h 20m to take her out for drives in the Alps on weekends. Indeed, we attended my first Montreal meeting with her in my possession in 2014 in Beaune.
Shortly after, I got a very rushed transfer to Singapore with my work and with a constant 30 degree heat and left-side road driving, the Montreal remained in storage in Switzerland to await our return to Europe - what I had expected to be around a year or two, turned into 6.5 years before we finally did return to set up residence near Zurich where we now live.
The engine turned over nicely when cranked but wouldn't start because the ignition system had corroded. Thankfully the most talented Montreal wizards, father and son Bürgi, have their workshop only 45 minutes away and we got a new Bosch ignition system installed in short order and the car was on the road again!
We have since attended the meetings in Schwarzsee in 2021, Bavaria in 2022 and Milan in 2023, and we are looking forward to attending all future meetings.
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