A product of 1970s top-down motoring, this 2000 Spider Veloce is a flashback to the classic sports car craze.
Alfa Romeo hasn't made another convertible since the discontinuation of the 4C in 2020. Hearing Stellantis warn Alfa Romeo nearly half a decade ago about slumping sales and looking now at their still-slow sales is sad to see, especially with final orders for the Giulia sedan (and Stelvio SUV) this year at the end of March.
Alfa Romeo is now moving away from pure Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicles and moving to hybrids (the Tonale SUV) or full EVs in the long run.
Its current lineup is different to what cars Alfa Romeo was selling many decades ago, one good example being this Alfa Romeo 2000 Spider Veloce.
The car market in the 1960s was interesting in contrast to the current market of cars which may feel monotone (paint codes but also "fun" cars). The Alfa Romeo Spider was one of many convertibles produced within the 60s and 80s - but the Spider did last longer than most of them.
Very interestingly, you could have cross-shopped this classic sports car with the first-generation Mazda MX-5 and its other British sports car-derived competitors.
Model years for the first-generation Spider ran from 1966 to 1994, lasting 28 years albeit with modern tweaks as the years whizzed by.
This Spider would be a Series 2, I assume imported 10 years after its 1973 registration date according to this SGCarMart listing. Featured in this model is the top-of-the-range 2.0 litre twin-cam 4-cylinder, introduced in 1971 with 132 quoted horsepower. This brute of a rear-wheel drive powertrain was mated to a 5-speed manual transmission - an uncommon and upmarket option back when most manual transmissions were a 4-speed for economy cars.
Things were serious if a car had the words "twin-cam" in its brochure or name. Speaking of name, the 2.0 litre engine would denote the name of the specified Spider to what is. Veloce roughly translates to "Fast" in English - so it is.
Fast it is not in modern standards. Quoted times for a 0-100km/h sprint would be around 10 seconds, so being beaten by a minivan is very possible, if not a guaranteed. For 1970s standards, it was pretty good.
Alfa Romeo has its cult following in the car scene, represented well in Singapore by the fact that these early 1970s convertibles are still around in Singapore on their original registration type ("black plate"), and aren't converted to the classic scheme. This would be 1 of at least 3 Spider that are Series 2, with a few more Spider of other series like Series 1 that are still dailyable.
Would they be good to daily? Probably, but I'm already scared doing so even with a 1990s iteration of the classic old sports car recipe - granted it was done by Lotus.
The first generation Spider lasted up until Series 4, by then having an altered body and doing away with exterior plastic trim. In my opinion, the last 2 series began to resemble boats and looked heavier compared to the older ones.
Production ceased in 1993, making way for its successor in the same year, the Type 916 Spider.
The new Spider would share similar bodywork and the same chassis as the GTV coupe, and that model would last 11 years, ending production in 2004.
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| Photos of one such Spider, linked below for more individual photos |
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