The 1963 Alfa Romeo

The Houseman family arrived at the Kellerman resort hotel on Saturday, August 10, 1963. That evening, the family was introduced to Robbie Gould the waiter. After Robbie's shift ended, he danced with Lisa Houseman in the hotel's ballroom. Penny Johnson surely saw Robbie dancing with Lisa when Penny performed a rumba dance with Johnny Castle that night in the ballroom.

During the mid-day of the following Monday, Penny was demonstrating wigs to a group of hotel guests -- including Lisa and Baby Houseman -- on a yard near the lake. As Penny watched, Robbie approached Lisa and talked softly into her ear. This dialogue ensued (beginning at 0:40 in the video):

Robbie Gould
[Imitating President Kennedy's accent] So I say, "Ask not what your waiter can do for you, but what you can do for your waiter."

If tips keep up, I'll have enough for my Alfa Romeo.

Lisa Houseman
That's my favorite car.

Johnny Castle
[Having approached and stood behind Penny:] Ladies, you look very lovely.

Lisa Houseman
[To Baby:] Baby, would you cover for me tonight? Tell Mom and Dad I went to lie down.

Baby Houseman
Where are you going?

Lisa Houseman
To the golf course. There's a pretty view from the first tee.

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Below are a couple of photographs of the 1963 model of the Alfa Romeo Giulietta -- a convertible sport car.

The excellent reputation of the Alfa Romeo car-manufacturing company, located in Italy, is summarized at the ConceptCarz website as follows:

Prior to World War II, Alfa Romeo was blessed with a mystique that few companies have ever been able to duplicate. Perhaps the easiest way to describe prewar Alfa Romeo is to compare it with postwar Ferrari, a company whose relentless dominance on the racetrack and in the garages of millionaires has become a familiar fact of life. ...

While Alfa Romeo was involved [in auto racing] from nearly the start of the sport. Alfa Romeo built its reputation with some of the finest drivers, finest engineers, and finest automobiles known to the world. An Alfa won every Mille Miglia from 1928 to 1938 .... Alfa Romeos raced in the most grueling, dangerous, frightening, and exciting events that car racing has ever known.

The company's road cars, too, used phenomenal engines and chassis, many of which were initially developed for race use and then later detuned and clothed in stunning bodies by Italy's famed carrozzerie. Alfa built supercars before supercars existed. Alfa was, put simply, one of the absolutely superlative prewar marques, a rarefied combination of lust, precision, sophistication, and aesthetic excellence. ...

After World War II ... the carmaker's characteristically excellent engineering and styling were translated into smaller, more affordable packages. ...

The real success story of Alfa Romeo's early postwar years, though, was ... the Alfa Romeo Giulietta, the first sports sedan. ... Even the four-door Giuliettas were equipped with mechanicals that made many contemporary sports cars jealous. The brakes were excellent finned Alfin drums, the rear axle with its aluminum differential housing was suspended by coils instead of leaves, and the car's compact size and weight of just one ton ensured delightful road manners.

Alfa Romeo produced some fancier, quite expensive models, such as the Giulia TZ, the 1963 model of which is shown in the below photograph.

If Robbie could afford a car like that, he wouldn't be working as a waiter. Therefore I assume he had his sights on the affordable Giulietta shown in the first two photographs.

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The following screenshot from the classified advertisements in an October 1963 issue of the Los Angeles Times shows a variety of prices for used Alfa Romero Giulietta cars.

A used 1956 model cost about $1,050, and a "near new" 1963 model cost $2,350. I looked around in some other old newspapers and found that the prices ranged -- as in the above advertisements -- mostly from $1,000 to $2,500.

In 1963, the average cost of a new car in the USA was $3,233. Keep in mind, however, that the average US car was much larger than an Alfa Romeo Giulietta. For example, the most popular car in 1963 was the Oldsmobile Cutlass, and the convertible model looked like this:

1963 Oldsmobile Cutlass convertible

That's a much larger car than the Alfa Romeo Giulietta.

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Robbie wanted a car that was unusual and had a sporty design. Robbie's taste in automobiles pleased Lisa, who exclaimed that the Alfa Romeo is "my favorite car". The mention of such a car made Lisa ready to meet secretly with Robbie in a secluded location that very night.

If Robbie was willing to buy a used car, he could have bought a Giulietta for as little as $1,000 -- about the cost of four illegal abortions.