Welcome to my Alfa Romeo GTV/Spider tribute.
With an award-winning Pininfarina design,
it is definitely a future classic!

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T H E   W H E E L S

 
The GTV/Spider comes originally equipped with 205/50 tyres on 16" rims (some are delivered with 195/60/15 – yak!), but it definitely deserves something else. 

Alfa Spider w/ Zender Siena 18" wheelsThe ultimate Alfa rim, is in my opinion the ones made by German company Zender especially for Alfa. The old "Milano" – now deleted – and the "Siena" are both looking excellent on most Alfa models. They both come in 17" and 18", although the 18" with 225/40 rubber looks definitely best. Together with a 30mm lowering, this looks excellent, but it suffers a bit in comfort on sharp bumps. Also beware that a 18" set will be adding a good deal of weight to your Spider resulting in poorer speed. Guess you can’t have it all…

Tire pressure
Tire pressure on your GTV/Spider should be 2.7 bar front and 2.5 bar rear. For high speed driving: front 3.0 bar, rear 2.8 bar. Remember to check pressures while the tires are cold. Surveys done by Dunlop show that at least 25 per cent of all tires examined are under-inflated by more than 10%!

Bolts and things
The GTV/Spider rims uses 5 x 98mm bolts. Bolt size is 12×1,25mm. The center hole is 58,1mm. Original offset depth (ET) is 35mm and EU regulations says +- 15mm, but with an ET larger than 40 mm, the wheels will probably sit in too deep, and cause problems with the discs or rub against the inside of your wheel arches.
 
The Zender "Siena" 18" Alfa wheel

Actual speed or just happy reading?
The speedometer is notoriously known to give you a too high reading, – in worst cases up to +10% – but by changing the tire size you could actually end up getting a none intentional speeding ticket. So if you’re planning on a new set of wheels, check how your speedo reading will change with a different tire option.

What tyre size should you use on…

15" rim 16" rim 17" rim 18" rim
195/60/15
[1932mm]
205/50/16
[1920mm]
215/45/17
[1964mm]
225/35/18
[1931mm]
225/45/16
[1912mm]
215/40/17
[1897mm]
225/40/18
[2001mm]
235/40/17
[1947mm]
235/35/18
[1953mm]
245/35/17
[1895mm]
245/35/18
[1975mm]

For more info on wheels and tyres in general, try the excellent Wheel & Tyre Bible.