I had a 1978 Spider that I'd gotten from a friend somewhere around 1996 and shaped it up. Along the way, I found a 1979 that was sitting abandoned in my company's parking lot—I found the owner, asked what he was going to do with it, and he gave it to me. A couple of months later, I was riding my motorcycle along the Pacific Coast Highway and spied an '82 languishing in a field under a tree. It was a mess, but I stopped to look. The owner stepped out to ask if I was interested to buy it, he wanted to get rid of it. I gave him $500 for it as I knew it would be rust damaged (it was, badly!), but the mechanicals should be good.
In early 1999, I'd just about gotten to where I wanted the '78 to be, and then it was smashed by an out of control car while I was on my way to the office. The collision didn't damage me at all, but it bent the Spider's frame and the car wasn't worth the cost of repairs. I looked at the three cars together and figured that there might be a complete running car between them, and one with the later '82 power train should prove more responsive, more reliable, and easier to service. I had all three cars transported to the shop where my Alfa Romeo mechanic worked, and we started from there to strip all three and build up one complete car, based on the '79 chassis, from all the best parts. It was always scruffy. Originally painted silver-gray, I changed the color to bright yellow to enhance its visibility on the road at night … all too often people would not see it as I drove with the top down in the evenings. I overhauled and upgraded the suspension, the driveshaft, and had to replace one of the two computer boxes that drove the combined injection/ignition system … never mind all the work that went into splicing the '82 electricals into the '79, etc. It was a fun project and a massive amount of work. And it came out just as I'd hoped: a great daily driver that was a lot of fun to drive and was not a pristine garage queen only suitable for driving to car meets and shows. G > On Apr 13, 2020, at 7:01 AM, Alan C <[email protected]> wrote: > > Interesting. Did you buy it a knocked down kit? There is red one here > belonging to the proprietor of a local hardware business. I'll see it I can > get a photo. > > Alan C > > On 13-Apr-20 02:55 PM, Godfrey DiGiorgi wrote: >> I was browsing one of the photo forums and came upon a thread highlighting >> "Your Favorite Ride" … that is, what car/motorcycle/bicycle captured your >> fantasy of the moment. Someone posted a photo of a beautiful 1971 Alfa Romeo >> GTV 1750, in yellow, that inspired me to look through my photo library to >> see if I could find a similar quality photo of my last Alfa Romeo Spider … >> >> 1979 Alfa Romeo Spider, "FrankenSpider" – Cupertino 2008 :: >> https://flic.kr/p/2iPRP59 >> >> It was both beautiful and a kick to drive, probably my last ever Alfa Romeo. >> I had a ball building it exceeded only by the joy in driving it. :) >> >> enjoy, >> G >> — >> Oh lost, and by the wind-grieved ghost, go back again! >> - "Look Homeward, Angel" by Thomas Wolfe -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
