Maar het ging hier om een 'echte' Spider, niet om een afgeleide van een coupé die TDI'tjes aan kan.
Hier een mooi stukje over de positionering van de 105 Spider:
Cars changed radically in those years. Most notably, the idea of automotive fun was all but eradicated. The EPA and Ralph Nader created a fun-sucking black hole that manufacturers struggled to claw out of for years, with almost no success until the Mazda Miata of 1989 revitalized a dying species and added a sultry tint of red to the cold, gray monochrome into which it was born.
But when the Miata, that great savior of the sports car, arrived to carry on the torch first lit by traditional, ash-framed Brits after the Second World War, it had to pry that beacon of light from the ageing fingers of a car that refused to die: the Alfa Romeo Spider.
Alfa's Spider was a survivor. Introduced in 1966 to a world rife with sports car choices, the Spider was always a bit of a misfit. With less performance than a Porsche, more sophistication than an MG, and a price tag in-between the costs of those marques' machines, the Alfa seemed to occupy a logical position within the sports car hierarchy.
Real sports cars didn't follow rules, though, and they didn't always play nice. The Spider would not allow itself to be pigeonholed into some anonymous niche between carmakers with whom Alfa had battled for years on racetracks and on dealer lots.
The Alfa Spider set itself apart from competitors with engineering precision unmatched by other cars of similar size and price.
Het hele verhaal...