Gary Harlan Ross of Falls Village has mixed memories of his first Alfa Romeo. It was a 1959 Veloce model. He bought when he was 18 years old and a student at Wesleyan University in Middletown. Commuting from his home in Wallingford, he spotted it one day sitting on the lot of a Rambler dealer on Route 5 in Meriden. “I looked at the thing and it was like God took his hand from the sky and pointed and said, ‘You want this!’ I pulled into the dealer,” Ross recalled earlier this week.

Buying it didn’t take much negotiating. The salesman told him, “Give me anything. Get this piece of crap off my parking lot.” Ross offered $750 and handed over a $50 deposit. “I had the car about two years and then through necessity (sold it.) I couldn’t afford to maintain it, being a college kid. I taught music privately to support college and support my car. It just got too expensive,” he said.