The car I want to drive the most | Thank Frankel it's Friday

But you know the problem: I probably couldn’t afford the suspension, let alone the car to which it is attached. Which is a shame because I have loved the Giulia Super ever since I spent some time being thrown around the back of one in the early 1970s with my ever-enthusiastic father at the wheel.

I love the incongruity of these cars. They look so sedate: 1960s three-box saloons probably most famous for their role as police cars being made to look stupid by a trio of Minis in The Italian Job. Yet they were actually staggeringly advanced for their era, coming with twin-cam engines, disc brakes at every corner and a five-speed gearbox: compare that to anything remotely similar the British were making at the time and you’ll see what I mean. Had I been a stunt driver in the late 1960s and asked to drive in The Italian Job, you’d have needed a crowbar to get me out of the Alfa, and if that meant having to drive in the scene where one gets dumped in the river, that would have been fine by me.

And as if that wasn’t confusing enough, in 1965 Alfa introduced the Giulia Super, which was neither a Ti, nor a Ti Super but a new standard offering who’s 98bhp 1.6-litre engine was somewhere between the Ti and Ti Super in tune and using the latter’s twin Weber carburettors to do it. It came with a more modern dashboard, its strip speedometer replaced by conventional dials. Not complicated enough? Fine, then be aware too of the Giulia 1300 Ti introduced in 1965 not as a cooking model as was the original Giulia Ti three years earlier, but a slightly more sporting version of the Giulia 1300 which remained in production.

I could go on and tell about the Giulia 1300 Super and Giulia 1600S introduced later in its career and the facelifted Nuova Supers launched in 1974 surviving until 1977, but even my brain is starting to hurt now. And I’ve not even mentioned the Perkins-powered, Italian market Giulia diesel introduced in the last two years of its life, and with just 54bhp and sounding like a food blender trying to swallow a small rock, perhaps that’s just as well.

I’ve driven most of them: Giulias with four speeds and five, disc brakes and drums, engines of 1.3 and 1.6-litres, saloons and Giardiniera estates. I’ve done long road journeys in them and long races in them too, including the Spa Six Hours. And I’ve been unable to be unhappy and driving one at the same time. The only significant one to slip the net is the Ti Super and they now fetch enormous money. How much? Most are tediously ‘POA’, but I did find one on an auction site a couple of years ago guiding from £150,000 upwards.

The one I found most charming was probably an original Giulia Ti, with drum brakes and, weirdly, a five-speed column-mounted gearshift. It’s not a car for hurling about, but for gently wobbling about the countryside I found it captivating. But it’s probably not the one I’d choose.

Instead, I’d make a car Alfa Romeo never built. Most restomod Giulias have the 2-litre twin cam engine fitted because even without the twin spark heads and Alfaholics wizardry, 170bhp is easily and reliably achievable. But the 1750 engine is sweeter and even if it only had, say, 140bhp, that would be more than enough in such a light little car. I’d give it some modern dampers, firmer (but not stiff) springs, a mild limited-slip differential and uprated discs without changing the wheel size and that would be about it. I’d aim to leave the car as standard in appearance as I possibly could. I reckon it would make a superb all-purpose recreational vehicle, especially for someone with a family who still wants to have fun on the road.

But what I really want, of course, is that Alfaholics Super-R 026. I’ll never be able to afford one of course but would run at the chance just to drive it. If it ever happens, you’ll be the first to know.