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M Y S P I D E R
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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 color 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 that will eventually become a
classic…
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