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the Spider (and even more so its 105 stablemate, the much rarer GTV coupe) was a force to be
reckoned with in racing circles. Only today, more than thirty years after its introduction, is the car
really ready to be
”
retired
„
to the vintage auto classes. And yet they still race, and they still win.
It has been said many times but deserves repeating
when you buy an Alfa Spider (really any
Alfa at all), you
“
re buying The Real Thing. This is no chopped-up econobox sedan, nor an
amalgamated copy of memories of what had been. The Alfa Romeo Spider is that memory, made
real in steel and aluminum, fire and noise.
After the intense competition of the 1960s, and the sudden, crushing weight of regulations, oil
crises, and general malaise of the 1970s, only the Alfa Spider was left standing, alone in what
was once a field rich in depth and promise. Names synonymous with sports cars
Triumph,
Austin Healy, even MG, the marque that arguably invented the sports car, had all utterly ceased
to exist. It was only in the 1990s and the introduction of the Miata, a car that is in essence
nostalgia on wheels, that the Spider quietly faded from view.
But even the very last Spider that rolled off the assembly line, 28 years after the first, was still a
DAMNED fun car to drive.
And, after all, that
“
s the whole point, isn
“
t it?
