How beautifully serendipitous that a Merkur Scorpio post should land right next to a Rover 800 post.
Somebody save the Scorpios!

IN REQUIEM
It is with deep regret that I announce the passing of my 1971 Alfa Romeo Spider Veloce from complications developed during rust-removal surgery. That she was afflicted was known, but the extent to which the problem had spread was not recognized until she was fully stripped in preparation for extensive but routine cosmetic surgery. She led an active life of some 45 years; she was a renowned beauty in her youth with her sleek body draped in French Blue paint and burgundy interior (which she preferred to call ‘Rosso Amaranto’) garnering her much attention.
We will gloss past her middle years, during which she took (as many performers do) to drinking oil, suffered from small problems too numerous and sad to mention here, and earned an ugly scar on her face in a street fight which she lost. Her comeback and second career on the beauty pageant circuit began some six years ago when she was rediscovered after this writer responded-this is something I admit to with some embarrassment-to a Craigslist Ad in which she promised cheap thrills. Although her beauty was still apparent, she appeared for our first encounter in cheap red paint, dirty white Mexican-velour seats, and sporting greasy green shag carpeting. She was rather loud and swayed alarmingly. Yes, she was still drinking oil heavily, and on our drive back to my house it was apparent that there was no stopping her.
Slow, patient and expensive work with her brought her back to her old charm. She stopped drinking, and was put on a strict beauty and physical rehabilitation regime. When she reemerged on the public scene, her lithe classic beauty fascinated a younger generation who had never known anything like her. Where she had once roared angrily upon being awakened and rudely blew smoke at those who disturbed her, she now purred with a suggestively sexual contentment that made everyone who encountered her at such moments want to spend time alone on a dark country road with her.
Before her diagnosis she had most recently appeared at an Italian Car show of some fame, garnering a second place in her class based on votes from an admiring public. It was this late-life success that led to the decision to try to replicate her early-years fashionista look of French Blue over Burgundy. As we have said, this decision led to her demise right when it seemed she was headed for public acclaim even larger than she had achieved in her youth. Without this attempt to ‘mingle with the Stars’ she would have likely been able to live a long life as a local celebrity, but regrettably she was lost because of this over-reaching ambition for a comeback which has destroyed so many like her.
Let us remember her fondly, if sadly but without regret. She came a long way back from her lowest point in life, aimed for lasting glory, and she damn near made it.
Here is a picture of her, taken at her last public appearance.