Finally have the Spider in my garage! After getting quotes for covered shipping - the car didn't have a top when I bought it - I decided to use the money that would have gone to shipping to install a top, and drive it back home. Road trip!
My wife and I left the kids with Grandma and flew from DC to Detroit yesterday morning. We drove as far as Pittsburgh yesterday and did the rest of the trip today. She ran like a top!
Feel free to debate the intelligence of driving a nearly 50 year old car close to 600 miles without so much as a screwdriver.
In the meantime, here are some impressions of my new toy:
Not sure why people badmouth the Solex so much. It ran great, got decent mileage, you can feel the secondary kick in when you floor it, and the choke worked perfectly in 40 degree weather this morning.
That little 1300 isn't what anyone would call fast, but it kept up with traffic doing 75 on the Ohio Turnpike no problem.
The trans is a 5 speed, freshly rebuilt with 115 guts by Rex Chalmers. The extra cog makes that 75 mph speed much more relaxed, and the trans shifts like butter!
I might need to make a call to Alfastop. The hydraulics seem fine, but you have to really stand on it to get the thing to slow down. The shoes were probably re-lined with the wrong material.
Alfa learned quite a lot between the 101 and 115 convertible tops.
The car really comes into its own with the top down, on winding roads, at speeds somewhere below 60 MPH. Fun!
Those skinny Vredensteins are nice tires, and the car really handles like an Alfa. Plenty of lean, but takes a good set and likes to be tossed around a bit.
Last but not least, Giuliettas make people smile. What a sweetheart of a car.
Anyway, I'm sure you know all this, but it's all new to me. I'll post some more observations and questions later, but for now here are the pics! The first set are from the upholstery shop where we picked it up.
-Jason