Alfa Romeo 8C Spider shows that Alfa’s bets keep getting better Read more

They’re mixing some strong Kool-Aid at Alfa Romeo these days, and we hope you don’t mind that we took a mongo swig of it.

As part of the Fiat umbrella, Alfa represents some of the best stuff enthusiasts will get from the Fiat-Chrysler partnership, and the boys from Turin rolled out some of their top toys during our visit earlier this week. The lineup included the Alfa 159 (in diesel and gasoline versions), the MiTo, the Brera and Brera Spider, a historic 1931 8C 2300 Le Mans racer (if you were at Goodwood this year, you saw it), and the topper: the 2009 8C Spider.

The 8C Spider follows the first flag-bearer for Alfa’s return to North America (the company bowed out of the States in 1994), the 8C Competizione, which sold out its entire 500-car run by last December (only 50 came to the United States).

Appetites whetted, 1,200 Alfa enthusiasts put in reservations for the Italian automaker’s 8C Spider after its premiere at the 2008 Geneva motor show.

Again, Alfa Romeo will build just 500 copies of the open-top version during the next two years, and just 35 of those will make it to the States. But it’s safe to say that those 35 buyers will not be disappointed.

Like the coupe, the 8C Spider is based on Maserati underpinnings and traces its aluminum engine block straight to Ferrari. As such, the $299,000 roadster draws on nearly 100 years of automotive

heritage, combined with some of the world’s highest levels of technical expertise, to create a special supercar among supercars.

source: autoweek