IT’S QUITE A shock to discover that something you’ve written just a few years ago is now completely and utterly obsolete. However, as we are about to discover, the reason for this obsolescence is really rather knee-tremblingly exciting.

    The last time we spoke to Max Banks about the family firm, it was based on the edges of Exmoor offering parts for one of the classic series of Alfas, plus a few rather superb suspension bits ’n’ bobs. Visit Alfaholics today though, and the company has relocated to two industrial units in Clevedon on the outskirts of Bristol – with an equally marked increase in staff. This, in itself, is a remarkable transformation, but as we are about to find out, this is only the visible bit of the iceberg.

    “When you came to us originally to do the article on how to modify the 105-series coupé, if you now re-read that article, it perfectly illustrates how much we’ve done. Compare the ways we used to modify them with the range of products we offer on our website, and to a degree you wouldn’t think it was the same company speaking. That’s how much we have developed and how many more products are available,” says Max.

    Interestingly Alfaholics has also noted the change in how retro classics are being enjoyed. Alfa owners in particular, are now increasingly interested in getting the best out of their cars, rather than slavishly rebuilding cars to factory spec, polishing them and then parking their car in a field.

    Max continues: “The big difference for us has been the change from a company selling standard remanufactured products for the 105-series Alfas, into one that is now dedicated to manufacturing all our own components. A lot of it being race, performance and tuning parts – some of it is standard parts that aren’t available or are only available in poor quality. We now control production ourselves so that we can offer our customers a better quality of product and a wider ranging product as well.”

    “Before it was ‘you need to find this, out of this car.’ Now we’ve actually gone and remade it ourselves, made it better than it was originally and the parts are all on the shelf and are easy to get. So it’s made the availability of tuning far easier than it was before.”

    Walk around the parts shelves at Alfaholics and they are divided into sections, the standard parts and the modified tuning parts. Not only are these latter parts beautifully engineered and presented, but they have come about by the company liaising with Britain’s world-leading motorsport industry. So if you buy a performance oriented Alfaholics component, you can be sure that it was made in Britain. Needless to say, this is something of which we are hugely supportive.

    “There’s been a change of supply chains, to higher quality companies that manufacture products for us on an exclusive basis for Alfa Romeos. It’s a two-way process where they work with us, as much as we work with them. We’re helping them develop different stuff, like the differentials, where we’re doing a lot of the development work for the diff manufacturer. They can then offer that information and knowledge to their other customers, and by working together we both end up with a better product for our own markets.”

    Of course, given the range of performance products available and all manufactured to Alfaholics specified standards, this has lead to a truly exciting development – the building of turn-key GTA Replicas.