ALFA’S SPIDER IS A CAR OF TRUE BEAUTY Time slips by quite quickly these days. They reckon it starts to gallop after 40 but if you’ve yet to reach 50 prepare for a surprise. For time goes faster still. As a result I’m not sure how old young Charlie has grown since his family moved in two doors down. I see him riding round on his bike now the summer’s here and say the odd hello. But as I parked the Alfa Romeo Spider outside the house, Charlie stopped riding by on his bike and instead started to go round and round the car. As I got out, he said what a beautiful car it was and I thought that here was a young man with a good eye for car style. He proved it even more when he ceased circling and stood back to look at the car. “It’s very good,” he said, “but there’s something about it that’s not quite right.” It was the type of conversation you might have while tyre kicking outside the pub yet here I was being engaged in it by a youngster of probably no more than nine. We stood there together and contemplated the Alfa for a while, resplendent in its red paintwork, the only colour an Italian car like this should be as it’s the county’s racing colour, not just that of Ferraris. In the end, we came to the conclusion, separately but at the same time, that it was the Alfa’s rear bumper that was wrong. It was simply too bulky, too heavy when the rest of the car had plenty of delicate detail. But don’t get either of us wrong, for we both agreed that despite this styling error the Alfa was still one hell of a car to look at. And I can say what Charlie can’t. It’s damned good to drive as well. The test car was only the 2.2 litre four cylinder petrol model – you can chose a 3.2 litre V6 with four wheel drive and there’s also a 2.4 litre diesel, too, exactly the same engine options that you get with Alfa’s closed car equivalent, the Brera. The two cars are £2,000 apart on list price, so the Spider 2.2 will set you back £25,995 instead of the Brera’s £23,995. That £2,000 is worth spending to have master craftsmen create a version of an already handsome coupe where the roof has been sawn off. As soon as it was unveiled at the 2006 Geneva Motor Show it was named Cabriolet of the Year, an honour it deserves. Of course, there’s a bit more to the creation of the Spider than a quick chop job, things like adding extra bracing to ensure the car remains rigid under most circumstances. Which it does. But much as I might like to say it was, this Alfa is no real sports car, at least not with the 2.2 litre engine. True you can hustle it along and have fun, but this is more a cruising the byways sort of car, one in which to savour the moment rather than go everywhere in a fury. Top down, the only natural way to travel in this car, you are aware of the sporty engine note, but it’s there in the background rather than intruding. It rises as you demand more power which even with only 2.2 litres is available in fairly copious quantities. Sadly, the Alfa seeks fuel as much as it seeks attention. As a result, the test car was only averaging around 25 mpg and I would have liked to have seen more. But with 70 litres of “benzina”, as the fuel gauge calls it, installed behind you can go a long way before worrying about having to stop again. And if you buy this car that’s all you’ll want to do. Drive. Maurice Hardy Annette's View Whenever you get into the Alfa Romeo Spider, latest in a long line of cars to bear that name, the first thing that will happen is you’ll reach for the hood control and lower it. Provided it’s not raining, of course! In the Alfa it’s easy, as everything about the hood operation is automated, even the release catches. This is something that the far dearer Porsche Boxster fails to offer. In the German car, you have to unlatch the central catch by hand before the roof will move. Roof down, the Spider is great fun, as you might expect. But driving with the sun behind you ensures it is not an easy car to pilot. The aluminium trim insert on the centre of the dash reflects the sun right into your eyes and at the same time there is quite a lot of reflection in the windscreen and the plastic rear windbreak becomes opaque, too. That’s not the best attention to detail in a car destined to spend much of its time with the roof down. Elsewhere the car does much better. There’s a chilled stowage compartment between the seats for keep a drink cool, the instruments are a model of clarity and placed just where you want them, and the angled minor gauges face towards the driver, although they are a little too deep set for easy viewing on a dull day. Thankfully, with this car life is seldom dull. Car: Alfa Romeo Spider 2.2 JTS Does it fit your ego?... 0-62 mph: 8.8 secs Top speed: 138 mph Bhp: 185 @ 6500 rpm Torque: 237 lb ft @ 4500 rpm ...and your wallet?... Price: £25,995 Urban: 21.7 mpg Extra urban: 38.7 mpg Combined: 30.1 mpg CO2 emissions: 221 g/km Insurance Group: 16 Best bits: looks good; drives good; by golly it does you good (with apologies to Mackeson, for those who can remember its adverts).