Spider (105/115 Series)

Pininfarina's Last Car The Tipo 105 Spider was shown at the Geneva Motor Show in March 1966, replacing the Giulietta/Giulia Spider that Pininfarina had also bodied. Alfa Romeo's own heritage material describes it as the last project led personally by Giovanni Battista 'Pinin' Farina, who died on 3 April 1966, within weeks of the car's public debut. The shape drew on Pininfarina's early-1960s aerodynamic show cars: a low, pointed nose, a full-length crease along the flanks and a tail that tapered to a point in mirror image of the front. Italians called it 'osso di seppia' — cuttlefish bone; English speakers settled on round tail or boat tail. The platform was a shortened Giulia Sprint GT floorpan, with the wheelbase cut by roughly 225 mm.

Duetto, and a Name That Never Was Alfa Romeo ran a public naming competition through its dealer network, drawing a very large entry — one specialist account puts it above 140,000 submissions. The winning suggestion, 'Duetto', was credited to Guidobaldo Trionfi of Brescia, but the name was already registered by a confectionery firm and had to be abandoned after about a year. The car was sold simply as the Alfa Romeo Spider 1600. The rejected name stuck anyway, and is now used almost universally for the 1966-1969 round-tail cars.

Round Tail to Kamm Tail The 1,570 cc twin-cam gave around 109 PS on twin 40 mm carburettors, with a five-speed gearbox and discs all round — an unusually complete specification for 1966. A 1,779 cc 1750 Spider Veloce followed in 1967, and a 1,290 cc 1300 Junior arrived in 1968 as the European entry model. The boat tail lasted only to the end of the decade: the truncated Kamm tail arrived for 1970 (some sources date its introduction to late 1969), squaring off the rear for better luggage space and, arguably, better aerodynamics. Round-tail production was therefore a small fraction of the total, and this scarcity, plus the purity of the original shape and its film association, is why Series 1 cars sell for multiples of equivalent Series 2 money.

Emissions, SPICA and the American Decades A 1966 Spider 1600 appeared in *The Graduate* (1967), the year's highest-grossing film. Its immediate commercial effect is easy to overstate — Series 1 1600 production still stopped at around 6,325 cars, and at roughly 4,000 dollars the Spider was not a mass-market proposition — but the association gave the model a durable American identity, and Alfa Romeo later sold a US base trim called the Graduate from 1985. To meet tightening US emissions rules Alfa fitted SPICA mechanical fuel injection to US-specification cars from the 1969 model year. Developed by Società Pompe Iniezione Cassani & Affini from diesel-injection technology and proven by Autodelta in competition, SPICA used a crank-driven four-plunger pump with a three-dimensional cam and centrifugal weights acting as a mechanical computer, at around 400 psi. It preserved power where rivals were being strangled, but demanded specialist setup, and many US cars were converted to Weber carburettors. Bosch L-Jetronic replaced it in 1982; Bosch Motronic followed on the Series 4.

Rubber Spoilers, the Series 4 and the End The Series 3 'Aerodinamica' of 1982 added a black rubber front spoiler and a rear duck-tail — soft foam rubber at first, redesigned in hard plastic around 1986 to carry a third brake light — along with heavier bumper treatments. It is the most numerous and the least admired of the four series. The Series 4 of 1989/90 removed both spoilers, re-curved the tail, adopted full-width body-coloured bumper fascias, Motronic injection and, on many cars, power steering and electric windows. Production ended in 1993 after 28 years, with the final 190 cars sold in North America as 1994-model-year Commemorative Editions.

Corrosion is the defining failure mode: sills, floors, rear suspension mounts and chassis rails, plus the front crossmember and spare wheel well. Mechanically the twin-cam is durable but seeps oil, and neglected coolant leads to corroded alloy castings, blocked radiators, overheating and head gasket failure. Gearboxes wear second and third synchros; clutches slip; bearings become noisy. Later differentials can be tired by around 60,000 miles and axle leaks are common. Right-hand-drive cars use a complex twin-servo brake arrangement prone to pedal creep. SPICA-injected US cars need a specialist who understands the pump; a poorly set up system is the usual reason owners convert to carburettors. On catalysed later cars, the exhaust system noticeably blunts response. Series 3 soft rubber spoilers degrade, and interior trim and electrics on pre-Series 4 cars are the weak point relative to contemporary rivals.

Structure first, everything else second. Check the sills, floors, chassis rails and — critically — the rear suspension mounting points, along with the front crossmember beneath the radiator and the spare wheel well, where the towing eye is welded directly to the underside. Sills are load-bearing and are harder to assess on Series 4 cars because plastic covers hide them. On a bare-looking car, assume filler until proven otherwise; a cheap Spider with rotten mounts is worth less than nothing. Mechanically, drive the car hard enough to warm it fully and watch for overheating; check coolant condition and inhibitor level, because the alloy castings corrode from the inside when antifreeze is neglected. Listen for axle rumble and propshaft knock, test second and third gear synchros, check for clutch slip and steering box play, and confirm the handbrake works — it acts on small internal drums. On US cars, establish whether SPICA injection is present, original and correctly set up, or whether the car has been converted to Webers; on Series 3 and 4 cars, confirm the L-Jetronic or Motronic system is healthy. Verify series identity matches the claimed year: round tail versus Kamm tail is the single biggest value determinant, and Series 1 values make misrepresentation worth guarding against. Check soft-top fit at the screen and quarter-windows.

As of August 2026, classic.com listed an average sale price of about 17,900 US dollars across all Alfa Romeo Spider generations, with roughly 51 cars for sale. The series split is stark: Series 1 averaged about 39,400 dollars, with recorded results running from around 2,100 dollars for a 1967 project up to an 89,000-dollar asking price in July 2026, while Series 2 averaged about 17,600 dollars (recorded range roughly 600 to 28,900 dollars), Series 3 about 11,000 dollars (roughly 1,500 to 34,900 dollars) and Series 4 about 16,200 dollars (recent auction results roughly 11,550 to 31,000 dollars). Series 3 dominates supply — 28 of the cars listed for sale at that date were Series 3. UK guidance from Classic & Sports Car's buyer's guide sets a similar hierarchy in sterling: Series 1 at roughly 10,000 pounds for a restoration project, 25,000 pounds average and 70,000 pounds for a show car; Series 2 at 6,000/15,000/35,000; Series 3 at 3,000/8,000/22,000; and Series 4 at 5,000/10,000/25,000, with 1300 and 1600 cars typically around 15% below equivalent 1750 and 2000 examples.