I still remember the first day I bought my last Alfa Spider. I was driving up Scottsdale Road when this beautiful red Quadrifoglio pulled up next to me – ironically the day after I broke up with a woman who told me that buying an Alfa was irresponsible. I was driving a nice, practical Saab 900 Turbo (four door, no less) at the time. You can imagine how that conversation ended. I was 30 at the time, or as the Italians say, primo terzo della tua vita.
After the fifth stoplight of trying to flag the driver down with no luck, the owner rolled down the window, tilting her sunglasses down so I could see her angry eyes, “Look asshole, I don’t want to go out with you.” I said, “I don’t want to go out with you either, I just want to buy your car.” Embarrassed that she had forgotten about the FOR SALE sign in the window, we pulled over at the nearest Circle K – which in Scottsdale in the early 90s was pretty much every three blocks, exchanging phone numbers. The next day the Alfa was mine. Ironically, that Friday I ran into said ex-girlfriend at the gas station and she said in her snarkiest tone, “well I see you got that car.” I’m not sure the Italians have a saying for “glad I kicked that bitch to the curb.”
– the author with no grey hair, circa 1990.
It was a lovely car. Compared to the Saab, it was an absolute money pit as my only car, and the 115-degree summers were not the optimum environment for its cooling system. Air conditioning was in name only (The Saab wasn’t much better honestly) so after about a year it had to go. It was a sad day when the fellow purchasing it for his wife as a gift so she would not divorce him did not appreciate the love I had bestowed upon the car. Her two bratty sons climbed over the trunk to fight for who would sit in the passenger seat. Dark days indeed.
One day, I saw two older gentlemen driving a cream colored Spider Veloce down the road in front of me. The top was down and I followed them for about ten miles. I could tell they were having a great discussion, laughing as they went. I suspected their friendship went back as long as the fairly grungy condition of the car, but it sounded great each time they left a stop light. The Rolling Stones tune “Waiting on a Friend” comes up while Spotify is in autoplay mode and I knew I had to buy another Alfa. If you two are reading this, now you know it wasn’t a stalker in that orange Porsche, just me.
Though 34 years have passed, it was to be my lucky day this week. When perusing Bring a Trailer, I always look at Spiders. They are always irresistible, but always seem to be difficolta. Way too much work, and way too little maintenance performed by the last owner(s). Like Wayne Cambell in Wayne’s World – who incidentally drives a Mk. 1 Spider in Wayne’s World 2, I finally find the right car. This lovingly cared for 84 has a tick under 170 thousand miles on the clock, and is in better shape than most of the 1-2 year old cars in my neighborhood. The owner agrees to let me visit the car in Portland and take it for a short drive. Pam affably tags along to keep my feet on the ground.
The great pictures on the Bring a Trailer listing do not do the car justice – it’s been incredibly well taken care of by Steve and the prior owners (including his brother). Turns out Steve even uses the same dent guy I do, so the body has only a few minor dings left in it. Being an Oregon and California car for its entire life, the underbody is clean and rust free. It doesn’t water or oil anywhere!
Inside and out, this is a car that has been pampered. Fortunately, I’m wearing sunglasses so Pam and Steve can’t see that I’m tearing up when I turn the key. That sound! 34 years melt away and I’m in car heaven again – best of all in a much more Alfa friendly climate. We flip the top down and drive away, becoming familiar with that growl that is the Alfa engine again. I’m hooked. Oh yes, it will be mine. But Friday at 1:13 is a long way away. Forever away.
Steve goes on to tell me that the car has had a full engine rebuild about 10k ago by the fellow that everyone in Portland uses, including no less than Keith Martin, publisher of Sports Car Marketplace (his Spider just sold on BAT for pretty close to 70k recently) Brakes, shocks, cooling system, all the things that plague early Alfas are all sorted. Even the electrics! I wish the windows on my 1986 944 went up and down this smoothly. Despite all the money invested, Steve mentions that he hopes he can get “about 9” for the car, and I’m secretly hoping that’s what I can buy it for. Like Mr. Burns from the Simpsons says: “I’m thinking of a number.” But it’s an auction and anything can happen. Doh!
Ironically as we pull up to Steve’s place, I’m the high bidder on the car with almost 4 days to go. Five minutes after we leave, someone has bid the car to $8,500. This feels anomalous, making me suspect evil bots in the mix. A quick inspection of the bidder’s profile reveals them as a newbie that hasn’t won anything, merely placing relatively high bids in at the start of auctions. Hmmmm.
The sleep score recorded by my Oura ring is precociously low all week. The app asks me what I’ve been doing to depress my score, and that my stress is “higher than normal.” There’s no button for “watching an auction on Bring A Trailer,” so I ignore it. Bidding starts in earnest on Friday morning, inching up in $100 increments to the $10k mark. The auction is due to end at 1:13. My number is 12, but I’m hoping it won’t go that far, and as the auction closes, I’m waiting for that $15k bomb to drop and I’m out of the game.
However, today is my day and I win the Spider at $11,250. The engine rebuild was almost that much. It’s a little after 1 in the afternoon – just late enough in the day that I don’t want to brave Portland rush hour traffic on the way home. Che palle! Heading to the bank for a cashier’s check, and later on to Home Depot to pick up a picnic table with my neighbor Bob across the street keeps me distracted, though the Oura app still warns of high stress.
A picnic table and an Alfa in the same day? Does life get any better than this? Nope.At about 5:30 it starts raining, and I’m bugging. Not going to drive this car in the rain while I’m getting used to it. We’re on the tail end of Mercury Retrograde; if anything bad happens, it will be now, but the weather app says clear skies by 7. Score a few for the bots, the sun comes back out just before 7 and by the time we get to Steve’s house, the pavement is dry. The dark clouds looming in the distance, make the top-down drive home slightly uncomfortable, but it’s tucked back into the garage just before the rain drops begin again.
Driving in the 70-degree weather with the top down the last few days brings a huge smile back. This car is a rare pleasure to drive at its own pace, which is between about 40 and 70 m.p.h. Though the redline is only 5800 r.p.m., the Alfa is very torquey with a wide midrange. Much like my day job of high-end audio, the specifications don’t tell the whole story. Today’s Grand Theft Auto crowd might be put off by 115 horsepower and a 9 second 0-60 time, the beauty is in how this is achieved.
Because the spider has such a wide powerband, it does not have to be driven frantically to be driven briskly. There isn’t even the slightest bit of slack in the non-assisted steering, which remains incredibly light to the touch and tactile. Even my BMW 2002 did not have this level of precision in its steering.
Combining the great sounds with the massive gauges and that wood steering wheel make for such an engaging sensory experience, I feel like my bull terriers after they’ve been out sniffing everything in the neighborhood. How did I ever live without this? Every shift is precise, and the burbling exhaust note (Steve happily replaced the stock exhaust with an Ansa so it sounds fantastic) reverberates off of everything I drive by.
Stopping for the morning coffee a truck bro cuts me off so he can be one vehicle ahead in line. Bro stuff to do you know, can’t be held up by a non-American car… Who cares? When you’re driving a vintage Alfa Romeo, time passing by is irrelevant. And that is the magic of this car. I sniff so much stuff between my house, coffee, and back, I take a nap with my bullies when I get home. This is living.
Sitting in the garage, hanging out with today’s Alfa and my cucciolo, it’s a different movie. Italians call the third part of your life invecchiare. And so it goes. However, I enjoy this Alfa so much more than my first, because I’ve had so many cars in between, I know what I didn’t grasp the first time. It’s amusing that my two slowest cars are the ones I love most. Getting old isn’t so bad after all.
Steve will never know just how much joy this red car has brought to me and my garage. And my sleep score is back up to 89 again. Vixi!
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