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Alfa Spider: First Drive

Date: 05 March 2007

Category: Cabrio
Prices: £25,767- £32,700
Key rival: Audi TT Roadster

Looks wise, the new Alfa Spider will turn plenty of heads, while roof down it's a prettier car than the Brera Coupe with which it shares its roots.

Three engines will be available, but the 2.4-litre diesel arrives slightly behind the 2.2 and four-wheel drive 3.2 petrol engines offered at launch.

Alfa_Spider_07.gif

Of the two, we drove the front-wheel drive 185PS 2.2, which is brisk without ever being dramatic. It comes with pretty generous levels of equipment, with dual-zone climate control, cruise control, 17-inch alloys, rear parking sensor and leather steering wheel all standard.

The cabin's comfortable and surprisingly spacious, given how tight some of these two-seat roadsters can be. That's helped by the decision not to try and fit token-gesture rear seats, but to use the space behind the seats as an additional stowage area, on top of a 200-litre boot that's deep but suffers from a couple of intruding elements, so isn't square enough to be able to use the entire space.

The ride is pretty good, though there is the flex and rattle that comes with the reduced rigidity of a car that's had a tin opener taken to its roof. Top-down, the cabin's well insulated from the breeze rushing round the windscreen, allowing high-speed cruising without ruining hair-dos.

Alfa is hoping to sell 700 Spiders in 2007, about the same number as the previous model managed in its best 12 months. The looks are the car's biggest selling point, but underneath the pretty exterior there's a decent, if not class-leading, cabrio that offers a low-volume and therefore relatively exclusive alternative to the default, and maybe more sensible, Audi TT or BMW Z4 alternatives.



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