The Alfa Romeo 8C Spider - Performance Rejuvenated

Poetic hyperbole is an occupational hazard when it comes to writing about such cars as the new Alfa Romeo 8C Spider. Nonetheless, I will endeavor to keep my cool and resist the urge to quote some other great historical poets. It won't be easy, however, because if ever there was a car more lovely and more temperate than a summer's day, it's the Alfa Romeo 8C Spider.

Arriving on the heels of the similarly dreamy Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione Coupe, the Alpha Romeo 8C Spider carries on as a sort of style and performance emissary for a rejuvenated Alfa Romeo.

Mechanically, the Alpha Spider parallels the hardtop 8C, with a Ferrari-built 444 horsepower 4.7-liter V-8 driving the rear wheels through an aft-mounted 6-speed automated manual transmission, actuated by paddles behind the steering wheel. The Alpha Romeo 8C Spider prudently forgoes the weight, complexity, and bulk of a retractable hardtop, instead employing a two-layer folding canvas roof with one-button electro-hydraulic operation.

Top stowed, the sun warms a matte-finish carbon-fiber dashboard brightened by scads of aluminum pieces, many roof them machined from solid billet. The seats feature stiff, lightweight carbon-fiber composite shells wrapped in creamy, soft-leather skin.

Thanks to a highly rigid, Maserati-derived steel chassis and carbon-fiber body panels, the open-topped Alfa Romeo 8C Spider's structural integrity should remain exemplary and curb weight should only marginally exceed the 8C coupe's 1,589 kilograms.

Acceleration to 100 km/h will be a tenth or two off the Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione's 4.2-second sprint and top speed will be around the 290 km/h.

As with the 8C Competizione, Alfa Romeo plans to release only 500 8C Spiders, assembled at the revamped Maserati factory in Modena, Italy. Of those, a scant few will be sold freely, as most Alfa Romeo 8C Spiders are already booked...