This is 50 | GT Junior Roadtrip Part 1

People celebrate turning 50 in different ways. By then, you’ve had more than enough time to figure out how cool you are (or aren’t).

The same is largely true for cars.

Reaching the half century is a far greater achievement for a car than for the average person. We don’t scrap people after 10 years because of annoying leaks or frustrating noises that are uneconomical to fix, even if the thought might be attractive in some cases.

To justify being kept in service for five decades and beyond, a car needs to be special. Very special. Only the cool stuff makes it, because only desirable cars make any sense to keep alive to that age.

“Only the good die young” doesn’t apply to cars.

Alfa Romeo has built plenty of special cars in its history. This particular example is a 1969 GT Junior 1300 Stepnose. Unlike most of the cars on Carbs and Coffee which belong to other people, this one is my car. In many ways, this is the inspiration for Carbs and Coffee’s existence.

The Stepnose was a bucket list car for me from the moment I laid eyes on one at Kyalami back in 2007. As it made a mockery of the pit straight and the spectator’s eardrums thanks to its firebreathing historic racecar spec, I fell in love.

In 2014, the dream started to become a reality after I bought the car (in pieces) from a family in the bustling metropolis of Benoni. After a few years of occasionally destroying a set of good clothes and often destroying my retirement savings, I now have a great little car.

I’ve long had the burning desire to do a winding roadtrip between Johannesburg and Cape Town, taking in South Africa’s unbelievable scenery and enjoying the small towns that the country is famous for.

January 2019 saw the realisation of that dream. The Stepnose roadtrip finally happened, with Cape Town as the starting point.

To be fair, the roadtrip wasn’t just an exercise in local tourism. Over the past 12 months, a 2l Nord engine has been built to mild race spec for me by Alfa Romeo expert Roy Prando. The Stepnose is a lovely car with the original 1300 engine, but my heart has always bled for an outlaw style car.

After all, the only thing better than a gorgeous car is a gorgeous car with twice as much horsepower!

I love working with Roy because his work is of an incredibly high standard and he takes the time to plan your project with you, giving you regular cost updates and sticking to what he says he will do. The challenge is that Roy is in Johannesburg and the car is in Cape Town. This “unfortunate” reality was the driving force behind the roadtrip.

Despite my best efforts in karting and classic car ownership in general, I’m still rather stupid with the spanners. I wasn’t backing myself to pull off a fanbelt replacement on the side of a dusty Karoo road in the harsh African sun. Quite honestly, I barely back myself to correctly pour in fuel additive at the petrol station, let alone anything more technical.

In case I had any doubts, my wife made it abundantly clear that there was no way I was doing this roadtrip alone. “Put it on a truck!” was suggested more than once. More than five times, even.

Thankfully, one of my greatest blessings in life is a fantastic set of mates, some of whom know which way to hold a spanner. An enthusiastic phone call later and my buddy Dale booked a one-way ticket to Cape Town. He’s the owner of another Alfa that has been featured on Carbs and Coffee and the man responsible for my stepnose ownership after he alerted me to this car’s “for sale” status all those years ago.

It became very real when I received the WhatsApp picture of that ticket. There was no backing out now – my car would be the only way my mate was getting home.

When driving a 50-year old car almost 1,500kms across the country, preparation is key. December was used to give the car the best possible chance of success. It’s worth noting that the 1300 engine hasn’t had a full rebuild, so we weren’t exactly dealing with a mechanically perfect car to start with.

I do many things as a lastminute.com exercise, but I decided to be better prepared this time. With the extensive help of Ignis, my friend with the awesome red Chevelle that we featured on Carbs and Coffee, work began. Thanks must also go to my mate Adrian, who has contributed huge expertise to our little classic car restoration club while his project car (a Mini) waiting patiently in the corner of the workshop for its turn.

New tyres. New plugs. New air and oil filters. A bath of fresh oil for the sump. Spanner check all round. Fixing dodgy earth connections to stop the rear lights from doing artistic interpretations of a request for a right flicker.

The list goes on.

Preparation went well, apart from a further earth issue that made absolutely no sense. In sympathy with each other, the fuel gauge would stop working and the generator light would come on. How is it even possible that the generator light is affected by the fuel gauge sender earth at the rear of the car?!?

I’ve often wondered whether the phrase “how on earth?!?” originated from Italian car enthusiasts, rather than as a reference to the planet we live on.

A multimeter reading of over 13V with the car running (and the generator light burning brightly) suggested that the alternator was still working, despite the imaginary Italian man in my dashboard warning me otherwise. Running out of electricity on a roadtrip isn’t ideal, but we had to have faith that the alternator wasn’t faulty.

Dale arrived nice and early on the Friday morning and was immediately whisked away to Ignis’ workshop. A careful inspection of the car was fuelled by coffee, an exceptionally unhealthy lunch from the Portuguese establishment in the surrounding industrial area and a couple of beers…

The car inspection quickly became an excuse for festivities among mates. Dale struggles immensely with spicy Indian food, primarily because his bald head gives him nowhere to hide his impressive curry sweat. It starts in the middle of his head and cascades down, providing everyone with a highly entertaining visual experience. Like all good friends would do, we therefore forced him into an evening of curry. Even the owner of the restaurant had to take a selfie with him, because she had never seen anyone suffer through a curry so much while claiming to “enjoy” it.

We continued to celebrate the successful inspection of the car late into Friday night.

Saturday morning dawned bright and early, but we didn’t. We slept off the previous night’s celebration until well after 8am. Not the strongest start, but a start nonetheless.

Showtime.

Destination: Graaff-Reinet, via Route 62. The heart of the Klein Karoo.

Things got off to a shaky start. As we made our way on the N1 towards Worcester, we had our first mild disagreement about the correct interpretation of the fuel gauge. Classic car fuel gauges are more of a guideline really, bouncing between disaster and happiness every time the car changes direction.

“There’s at least another 10 litres in here, we are fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Ok, well that was the N1 Winelands station we just passed, so no worries then.”

“It’s your car, you know best”

“But you said…?”

With one eye on the fuel gauge, we decided to get the in-car entertainment system working. In other words, we tried to get the JBL Bluetooth speaker to stay on the dashboard without rolling off. After a few years of classic Alfa ownership we finally found a use for the dashboard vents! If you angle the insert at 45 degrees, it makes a handy speaker holder.

By the time we arrived at the Huguenot Tunnel with a fuel gauge needle that had given up dancing around corners in favour of lying depressingly still at the bottom, I had visions of running out of petrol in the tunnel. I’m pretty sure that’s illegal, let alone incredibly embarrassing. I couldn’t decide which phone call I was dreading most – my wife, or my friends!

We emerged from the tunnel running on fumes, but still running. I’ve never been happier in my life to see a petrol station. I promised myself that we would fill up in every single town on the way. I could forgive reliability issues ruining the trip, but I would never forgive myself for running out of petrol!

With a full tank of petrol and the concerning return of the generator warning light, Route 62 beckoned.

To be continued…