It’s easy to see why the Montreal enjoys such a dedicated cult following. There’s very little out there like it. Styled by Marcello Gandini, the maestro of Bertone himself, this diffusion, accessible supercar from the Alfa stable still looks fresh today.

This paricularly crisp version is currently available on an Ebay Auction, and we thought anyone with a heart, a mind and eyes would swoon over the crispness of its paint job and that sexy interior. May not pass muster with the concours brigade, but who cares?

Alfa’s Montreal is one of those cars that seem too rarified, too exotic and graceful to lower itself to the rigours of a track day.

But our squeamishness is blasted out the window by this hand-made onboard of a Montreal-heavy trackday at the Adria Raceway in the Veneto, Northern Italy.

It was, after all, powered by an engine derived from that in the beautiful type 33 Stradale, and built for long distance ragging. You can see the composure these Gandini-penned beauties show on the limit, and what short shrift they give modern GTis and other minnows of the world of automotive style.

Nice sounds and snappy gearbox action, too…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Video via www.automobiliac.com

It never ceases to cheer us up to see look at the gorgeous lines of the Alfa Romeo Montreal, which was penned by Lamborghini Muira designer Marcello Gandini whilst working at the Bertone Carrozzeria toward the end of the sixties.

The production car was launched at Geneva in 1970, and was loved by almost everyone who lay eyes on her. But in it’s pretty body beat a powerful heart: a 2 litre V8 derived from the one that had been used in the Tipo 33 Stradale. It was therefore not only a lovely looking thing, it went like stink and had some serious aural grunt as well as a futuristic ergonomically efficient interior.

A little under 4000 of the cars were produced until 1977, and the car remains one of the all-time most popular dream rides here at Influx towers.

Beauty is a difficult thing to define. It’s a cliché to say that it resides in the perception of the observer. Anyone with an aesthetic atom in their being knows that the non-relative, objective, obviously apparent kind of beauty truly exists.

There of course can be beauty in the magic play of numbers on a balance sheet, in the engineering brilliance required to squeeze a hundred miles out of a litre of fuel, or the ability to carry safely a screaming family of six to the coast for a weekend without causing marital breakdown.

Problem is, this deeply embedded, functional aesthetic has apparently dominated vehicle design of the last few years.

But as obvious as the fact that beauty is everywhere, and that it can take on a variety of manifestations – is the fact that Giugiaro’s distinctly feminine design for Bertone of the Alfa Canguro, that debuted at the Paris salon of 1964, must be one of the most objectively beautiful cars ever designed.

Its lines flow each into each with an almost otherworldly harmony; the wheel arches describe the sort of arc that Michaelangelo must have dreamed about in the halls of renaissance Rome; the curved glass work and fibreglass that encased the cabin folds the driver in like the pilot of a fighter plane; the D-type inspired nose and cut-off, perky tail hints of nimbleness and endless fleet of foot.

Though the lightweight, supremely slipstreamed design never manifest in a road-going production Alfa, a version of the car survives, last reported shown at a concours event in Italy in 2005, apparently by a Japanese owner. Elements of the design informed many classic Alfa and Bertone designs, particularly the gorgeous Montreal of 1970.

Is beauty truly in the eye of the beholder?

Let us know what, if anything, pleases your pupils as much as this slice of automotive heaven.