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“You can't call yourself a
petrol-head
until you've owned an Alfa!” |
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M Y S P I D E R
WOAW! - I
thought the first time I saw it for the first time back in
1995 - THAT'S THE CAR I WANT! It took me a couple of years
to get one, but when I finally got over to the dealer and
sat in my Spider for the first time, I realized that it was
the coolest and most sexy piece of toy I had ever laid my
hands on!
 It
stood there all bright and shiny, and the interior was
smelling like a thousand Italian cows - good that was :-)
The exceptionally beautiful Pininfarina design was painted
in titan silver-gray metallic, - and to top it off, I had
ordered the complete
"Lusso" treatment, - air-con, Momo
leather seats and the "blue style" package interior with
colour matching electric roof. The wheels was 17" Azev "E"
rims fitted with Dunlop SP8000 245/35 tyres. It was truly
love at first sight!
 Later I had to replace one of
my rims due to poor Norwegian roads. It seemed difficult to
get hold of just one of the Azev rims, so I decided to go
all the way! 4 new 18" Zender Siena
rims especially made for Alfa, fitted with Nokian NRZi
225/40 was ordered. Woaw... it looked spectacular and the
Nokian handled somewhat better than the old Dunlop.
I
found that the Sienas left too much space in the back wheel
archers, so I added 10mm spacers on
both sides and it looked
perfect! I also lowered it about 30mm with the Eibach
Pro-kit sport springs. Combined with the 225/40/18 wheels,
it handled way better than before, - although it suffered a
bit in comfort on sharp bumps. Guess you can't have it both
ways...
 The GTV/Spider has an exceptional design, so
don't go and overdo it in the styling department.
A couple
of things that it definitely deserves though, is the
aforementioned 30mm lowering combined with 18" wheels.
Other
details is replacing the standard orange - and pretty cheap
looking - side indicators with white ones.
I also had the
side mirrors painted. They originally come in matte black,
probably to fit with the black windscreen frame. The GTV
mirrors are painted though.
 The
standard sound system is absolutely shit and had to be
replaced! I bought the Sony CD/radio
CDX-L400X with a silver and red front, - matching both
the silver mid-consol and the red hazard button above the
slot perfectly. Together with an 800W amp, it delivered open
road music through a new set of full-tone speakers +
tweeters, - and a real sub-woofer (not the extremely
poor sub originally fitted). All in the Xplod-series from
Sony.
Although my relationship with the Spider had
to come to an end in favour for a
156 GTA, I still believe the GTV/Spider is a great
looker and could very well become a future classic... |
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