I was lucky at the time to get my Alfa Romeo Spider from a friend as I knew its history. I'd heard that Alfas can be a mixed bag so I felt more confident knowing where this one had been and how it had been treated. I bought it from him with around 40 thousand miles on it, and it felt more or less like new, with the occasional scuff here and there. It gave me about five years of totally trouble free driving, but a few things have begun to crop up in the past couple of years.
The clutch in my Alfa Spider went after about 70k miles, which does seem fair enough really. There was also a problem more recently with the rear bearings, and the climate control is pretty hit and miss these days, it seems to need recharging quite often, as in a couple of times a year. I so seldom use it anyway that I won't bother doing so next time it needs it. These don't feel like signs of decay though, as if the car is suddenly about to die completely, and it sailed through its MOT this March, just with a couple of advisories about the exhaust and tyres.
Anyway, enough about the little mechanical niggles. The Spider itself is great to drive, lots of power, never ever loses its grip on the road, corners magnificently. There's always more power left as well, no matter how fast you're going (well I'm hardly a boy racer but as fast as I go in it) there's always more left to give, touch the pedal and the engine roars into life, what a magic sound. It's reasonably comfy as well, although not really over longer distances. I find I need to stop at services every hundred miles or so to get my legs moving again. Speaking of long trips, the boot is an odd shape, quite long and thin and surprisingly deep, so you tend to sort of slot things into it. Mind you it doesn't get that much use since the only long drives are me with work. With only two seats we can't do family trips in it.
My 2.0 litre Alfa Romeo Spider doesn't drink petrol too badly, I'd say it averages about high 20s, low 30s, that sort of area. Obviously tax and insurance on the Spider are higher than your average car, but then it is an Alfa.
I have had people sniff at the boot space in this, but it's fine as far as I'm concerned. The only trouble I had was when we were away for a week and couldn't get two large suitcases in the boot. We didn't have the kids with us though so we just put one in the back seat. It'll be a bit more of the problem with the kids are older and we're taking them away with us, but fine for now.
Anyway forget about the boot. The power in the Alfa Spider is fantastic, huge fun, love it. Best part about the Spider though is that it doesn't break every few yards like I've had with certain other performance cars before.
I like the start/stop button, engine roars into life when you hit it, love that. Now, the one warning is that you won't be beating anyone away from the lights in this thing. I was a bit disappointed to be pootling up to 60 in what felt like quite a long time - I think it's around 9 seconds, not fast. But it always feels hungry, the power to weight is good, and whatever it might lack in power I'm always compensated for in how little fuel it gets through. If I ever see someone filling up a BMW or whatever, I just smile to myself about that. I suppose the gearbox could be a little easier.
There's some handy little features in the Alfa Romeo Spider like the system that blips to guide you into parking spaces. I actually still find that a bit patronising, but at least it means I won't kerb the wheels. It's pretty hard to see out the back actually so those do come in hand. I got the 8 speaker Bose stereo upgrade and never regretted it, really does completely surround you in sound. I didn't get the V6 engine after all, so I'm not missing all that much!
Little fridge box in the compartment between the front seats, yes thankyou Alfa, I will have a nice cold beverage, too kind. It's pretty comfortable too, like you can change the height and even the back support in the seats, all good. I'm pretty tall too and I fit in just fine.
Blast from the past! I had one of these for a few years in the late 90s, and had a fantastic time with it. At the time I was commuting about 80 miles a day total, and it just zipped along in wonderful style. The only annoying thing about the Alfa Spider was the noise on the major roads (probably inevitable with a soft top).
Thinking back it's probably not the most comfortable or reassuringly stable car all in all, but to me it just seemed wonderfully sporty (I suppose I was, ahem, a bit younger then). Obviously as it's a convertible you're a lot more exposed in a crash - I always kind of had a bit of a twitch about something in a crash sailing through the fabric roof and onto my head!!
Like all nice powerful cars it does tend to drink fuel quite heavily, but it gets you from A to B so quickly and exhilaratingly it more than compensates.
It goes without saying there isn't much space in the Alfa Spider for very much at all apart from driver and passenger, and even then you won't be giving lifts to any particularly tall people.
All in all a good fun car, if a bit shaky and noisy at times.