My Alfa Spider

Choosing which one to buy.

Getting my Spider when I did really came out of nowhere. Although I had been interested in owning one, I had not really been able to put a date on when I would get one. Annette and I visited a summer fete at a neighbouring village to ours and bumped in to a couple that used to live next to Annette before I knew her. They owned a 78 Spider 2000 Veloce and Annette asked if they wouldn’t mind me having a look. It turned out he was just about to put in on the market. The reason was that he had just taken delivery of a Classic Porsche 911, a long-term dream of his, and could not really justify owning both. So off we went to have a look. I mentioned I was interested but wanted to get a friend to have a look at it for me. A couple of days later, a good mate of mine called John Bishop, (Bishy) popped round to have a look at it for me. He had worked as a mechanic for a number of years so new a lot more about what to look for in terms of costly repairs. Unfortunately the car seemed to need rather a lot of work doing to it so I had to pass on that one.

However, once I had looked at one, I had to keep looking. Earlier in the day I had called the UK Alfa Romeo Owners Club and left a message about joining the club. That very same night I received a call form the club. I pointed out that I was interested in a Series 2 Spider and he gave me details of one that had just come on the market from another member. I called the owner the following morning to get some details. This was a Wednesday. The car sounded very positive and I arranged to visit him on the Friday evening after work.

So off Bishy and me went shortly before 7pm on the Friday. It took about 2 1/2 hours to get there but the run was without any real hold-ups. We found the house and met the owner’s dad who showed us the car. Bishy set off torch in hand examining the car from every angle as I stood by preying that he would find no major faults. It's along way to go only to see a pile of rubbish. Some time later he gave the thumbs up and I sorted out a price and put down a deposit. I then arranged to collect the car in a couple of weeks as I was going on holiday the following morning and also had to extend the drive at home in order to fit it on with our everyday cars.

So after arriving home at about 1am the following morning, we were both tired but at least it wasn't a wasted journey. At this point I would like to say again a big thank you to Bish for giving up an evening of his time particularly as he had been up very early that day for work. Cheers mate.

Over the following week at a holiday cottage in Kent, I ordered a made-to-measure cover, and started to organise insurance.

Once back home with a week to go before collection, Annette and I started organising our driveway. Basically it needed to be widened at the back by just a foot so that the car would fit easily next to the shed. We could then build a carport using the side of the shed as one of the walls.

I won't go in to details about the concreting, this is a car web-site after all, but let's just say that what appeared to be a small area to fill was in fact huge. It was a very hot week and even with the help of our friend George from over the road, it took ages.

Anyway, towards the end of the week I received a phone call from the owner of the Spider. One of the jobs that he was carrying out for me before I received the car was to get the brake servos reconditioned. The parts had been sent to a specialist and had returned but were not working correctly. Basically this meant that I was not going to take delivery of the car that weekend. Very frustrating but at least I wasn't going to receive a car with brakes that weren't working correctly. What with the time taken for the system to be returned, fixed and sent back again, it was agreed that I would wait another week and pick it up the following weekend.