Copyright © 2019 Alfa Romeo Owners Club | MiTo Register www.mitoregister.com

2011 Alfa Romeo QV Press Car Where is it now?

states the one previous owner was Fiat Auto UK Ltd who reg-istered the car on 10th Octo-ber 2011.

The car has remained the same as the day Kate bought it, albeit showing some signs of wear now. Having bought the car with 9,000 miles show-ing, the car is now showing 46,000 under Kate’s owner-ship.

The MiTo is a 2011 Quadro-foglio Verde MultiAir with op-tional extras including dual zone climate control and those beautiful green-stitched Sabelt carbon seats. It was used by Alfa Romeo as one of several press cars, and fea-tures in a host of promotional editorial images taken by Mi-chael Ward, the art director and chief photographer of Au-to Italia magazine.

Since owning the car, Kate has only had one major issue which was an intermittent

It is rare that an Alfa Ro-meo Press Car turns up, and even rarer to simply stumble upon one in the street. But that’s what happened to Ste-phen Taylor recently when he answered my call on our Face-book group for any infor-mation on a few press cars I was trying to track down.

Stephen thought the regis-tration number looked famil-iar, and he was right. It be-longed to a neighbour round the corner, and Stephen knocked on her door to intro-duce me and our MiTo Regis-ter to her.

Kate Macaulay lives just outside Sterling in Scotland close to the river Forth, rough-ly equidistant from Perth, Ed-inburgh and Glasgow. She bought the MiTo QV from Western Alfa in Perth in May 2013. Western Alfa told her it was a press car from Alfa Ro-meo and sure enough the V5

Copyright © 2019 Alfa Romeo Owners Club | MiTo Register www.mitoregister.com

2011 Alfa Romeo QV Press Car Where is it now?

proud of the tyres means mine are not so pretty! They have been dinked a few times…”.

Kate also recently lost the spare key, but thinks (as we all do!) that £300 for a replacement is not worth the money.

But what does it feel like to own an Alfa Romeo press car?

“The fact that it had been a press car didn’t make much difference. I was more pleased with the fact that it was a QV. Though I must admit that seeing my car as Cool Cars Wallpaper then featuring in a car show did make it feel a bit special”.

Kate is no stranger to Alfa Romeo, having owned four. Her first Alfa was, like me, an Al-fasud which she loved, although it rusted to death despite a full respray.

Comparing her MiTo to her first Alfasud, Kate just says a few words: “This car is just as much fun”. And I completely agree.

noise that was diagnosed by Western Alfa over several pain-ful months and finally tracked down to a rear axle bush. But other than that and normal ser-vicing the car has been reliable.

Kate is now semi-retired and has no plans on the horizon to replace the MiTo.

“The size of the car suits me,” she says, “but the thing I like most is the power. Not that I am zooming around the coun-tryside, but it’s nice to know it’s there if needed”.

The MiTo is Kate’s only transport, so it gets used a lot for herself, her sons and her dogs. She is often amazed at how much can fit in the MiTo and, yes, the car has been used for tip runs!

Is there anything she doesn’t like about the MiTo?

“I don’t like the alloys”, she says. “Although they are very pretty, the fact that they are