Photo: bringatrailer.com / norinofu
To paraphrase an old Internet meme, you could have rolled like a mafia guy, but you were playin’. While you were not paying attention, an armored Alfa Romeo with a very colorful history sold for (relative) peanuts.
Perhaps more intriguing than the fact that this Alfa Romeo came with ties to the Mafia was the choice of Alfa Romeo: an apparently unassuming Alfetta that a Mafia boss had modified into an armored vehicle, complete with modern telecommunication systems. For those days, at the very least.
The 1980 Alfa Romeo Alfetta was sold new to one Francesco Muto in Cetraro, Italy. Francesco, or Franco as he’s better known, or the King of the Fish, is the leader of the ‘Ndrina Muto group from Cetraro and was finally arrested in 2016 for drug trafficking, among other things. His signature is on the original registration document.
Bring a Trailer, which listed the car and brokered the transaction, notes that Muto took the car to armored vehicle specialist Marazzi right after purchase, to have it bulletproofed. The modification added 1,300 pounds more to the 2,500 original ones, but made for a safer, if not very elegant, ride for the Mafia boss. It included full armor body plating, bulletproof windows with additional plexiglass protection, bulletproof wheels and tires, a dual fire-suppression system, and beefed-up locks.
An additional safety measure was the installation of a telecommunication system, which would have allowed Muto to communicate with his people outside, in the eventuality that he ended up locked and stuck in the car.
With a white paintjob and brown velour interior, the Alfetta did come with some signs of the passing of time, even though it’d been driven only for about 8,000 miles (it came with exactly 13,000 kilometers on the clock). The seller acquired it in 2013 and only used it to appear in various car shows around the continent.
The Alfetta did not come with valid registration: it was originally registered in 1981 by Muto and it was never renewed afterwards. For this reason, the seller advised performing a full inspection before taking it to the road. The new owner acquired it for $11,750, which is low compared to how much similar models fetched and if you consider its ties to the Mafia – more specifically, to a group that was still operating in 2016.
The 1980 Alfa Romeo Alfetta was sold new to one Francesco Muto in Cetraro, Italy. Francesco, or Franco as he’s better known, or the King of the Fish, is the leader of the ‘Ndrina Muto group from Cetraro and was finally arrested in 2016 for drug trafficking, among other things. His signature is on the original registration document.
Bring a Trailer, which listed the car and brokered the transaction, notes that Muto took the car to armored vehicle specialist Marazzi right after purchase, to have it bulletproofed. The modification added 1,300 pounds more to the 2,500 original ones, but made for a safer, if not very elegant, ride for the Mafia boss. It included full armor body plating, bulletproof windows with additional plexiglass protection, bulletproof wheels and tires, a dual fire-suppression system, and beefed-up locks.
An additional safety measure was the installation of a telecommunication system, which would have allowed Muto to communicate with his people outside, in the eventuality that he ended up locked and stuck in the car.
With a white paintjob and brown velour interior, the Alfetta did come with some signs of the passing of time, even though it’d been driven only for about 8,000 miles (it came with exactly 13,000 kilometers on the clock). The seller acquired it in 2013 and only used it to appear in various car shows around the continent.
The Alfetta did not come with valid registration: it was originally registered in 1981 by Muto and it was never renewed afterwards. For this reason, the seller advised performing a full inspection before taking it to the road. The new owner acquired it for $11,750, which is low compared to how much similar models fetched and if you consider its ties to the Mafia – more specifically, to a group that was still operating in 2016.
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