Let’s not beat around the bushes here – the Alfa Romeo Spider is hectically expensive for what you’re getting. There’s no rationality in paying R525K for a two-seater soft-top that takes 8.5 seconds to get from 0-100km/h.

If you’re buying the Spider, you’ve got a lot of money burning a hole in your back pocket; you’ve taken a look at this beautiful creature and you’ve decided you want it. No arguments there. So what exactly are you getting?

We think its style will be the biggest draw card, and it’s hard not to fall in love with the muscular lines of Brera with the top down. Pininfarina has created a work of art here, and we’d even say it’s somewhat more elegant than the Brera coupe. When you want a roof over your head, the Brera’s electrically operated fabric roof does the trick, but its operation is decidedly slow.

As a driver’s car, the Spider 3.2 V6 Q4 is a bit of a mixed bag. Its 191kW direct-injection petrol motor is perfectly willing, but the almost-1700kg it has to pull along makes it lively rather than outright fast. You’ll be lucky if it outruns a mid-range BMW 3-Series. Overtaking acceleration is not too sharp either and at this price, passing slower vehicles should be effortless rather than calculated. Consider that the slightly dearer BMW 335i does the 80 – 120km/h run in half the time.

The Spider actually impressed us when it came to road holding – as long as the road was smooth. With an advanced double-wishbone front and multi-link rear suspension system and power delivery through an all-wheel drive system that sends 57% of its power to the rear wheels in normal conditions, that’s no surprise. However, torsional stiffness is not a strong point in this open-top. The Spider is notably creaky on most road surfaces and scuttle shake rears its ugly head all too often. Now take a corner with enough undulations, at speed, and its otherwise fine cornering poise is suddenly unsettled.



The Spider is a surprisingly comfortable car to live with. It has most of the mod cons you’d expect in a luxury car, including dual-zone climate control, sensor-activated headlights and wipers, comfy leather seats and classy interior finishes. There are also some extravagant colour schemes on offer, if you wanted a pimp-red interior to go with that gangster-black paintwork, for instance. The Spider is generously proportioned for a roadster, so the 2-seat cabin is fairly roomy, but we feel most of the space went into the long bonnet. The boot, which carries 253 litres regardless of where the roof is, is no bigger than the ragtop average.

This Alfa takes safety very seriously and it has the VDC stability programme supplementing the centre-diff to help keep you on path, as well as front and side airbags, and a driver’s kneebag for the event of a collision. Also reassuring is that the 159 sedan, on which Spider’s based, earned 5 EuroNCAP stars for occupant protection.

If your performance expectations are not too high, you’ll enjoy living with this car. Just have a drink or two before reading the sticker price.

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