There was a fair amount of interest in a recent ‘Jeff in the Junkyard‘ post where the boat-tail rear end of a vintage Alfa-Romeo Spider could be seen. Well, put that junked parts car together with this 1967 Alfa-Romeo Spider listed on eBay and you just may have a complete example at the end! While the eBay car wears a great shade of orange, the Texas sun has done its best to burn through the paint, leaving the cosmetics a bit of a mess. The upside to the dry hot climate is that this Duetto doesn’t appear too rusty. However, the seller doesn’t make any claims that the car is entirely rust-free, so bid carefully if this is a project you’ve been looking for. The Buy-It-Now price of $8,750 isn’t terrible, but like any restoration project, I’d try to get the price down a bit more before taking the plunge. Restore the interior, refresh the mechanics and leave the paint as-is. Then, just drive the thing!
I bought my first boat tail 1750 in 1972, it was a 69 model and was my baptism into all things Alfa. I currently have a 78 spider that we are just finishing for my wife. So…..with those disclosures made, I think the boat tails are way over priced today in comparison to the slightly newer model Kamm backs like my 78. The 2000 engine is better in the newer ones, the Machanical fuel injection, while not as sexy as Webbers Is flawless. We recently picked up our car from an extended stay in the body shop, had not been started for Maby a year, charged the battery, pulled the choke and it started like it had just been driven there. Drove it 100 miles home flawlessly after the tires became round again. The early Kamm tails are selling for as much as 75% less than the boat tails and are equal to superior in every way I can think off. I do like the earlier cars before the plastic bumpers and interior parts, we are replacing the bumpers on ours, but the later cars are a much better buy and have a much better upside. My car needed a new fender and fresh paint but had been recently restored with new interior, top, and a lot of other work. We bought it in California for 1500.00, drove it 800 miles home and now with body work and paint have less than 4000.00 in the car. We need tires, one marker light, and the chrome bumpers. It has no rust and will be a near perfect driver. For under 5000.00
All fine and good but for those of us in California life stops in 1975.
Kamm backs started in 1970……………..
The official first year for Kammback in the US was 1971. Thankfully it retained the 1750 motor…
Well said.
I have lived by that rule ever since it came out.
I am in SoCal .
Jim is talking about the smog nazis here in CA.
Arizona smog tests back to 1967.
Jim,
I feel you but that’s not necessarily so. Out of 6 Spiders I’ve owned, 3 were newer than ’75. I was forced to sell ’79 out of state because it had Webers, one ’82 took some effort to smog but it finally got its California papers. The other ’82 was also an out of state car that was sold as is but the buyer managed smog it as well.
Having owned a ’69 Spider Veloce (BTW, the best of the 105 Spiders IMO), I understand why the Series 1 fetch a premium. Besides being the original design, it is also less mechanically complex (aside from the brakes for the US models that required dual MCs). The 1750 may be down on torque compared to the 2L but its a more revvier and flexible. I am keeping one eye open for another Spider in my future, this time a Series 3. I prefer 83-85 that still retained the twin barrel dash (I despise the mono pod).
Whatever the differences in personal opinions may be, the one thing in common is that 105/115 Spiders are still great cars to own!
Agree with Dave, the boat tail Alfas are overpriced, and I think this one is way overpriced. This car has serious body / floor problems that even the annoyingly small low quality photos show, and with the missing parts and rats nest under-dash area, plus the unknown condition of the engine/drivetrain, this could be a money trap that could lead an unwary buyer to end up avoiding Alfas for a long time.
This one is not much more than a limited parts car, at least until these boat tails get to the values of the earlier Alfa Spiders, which they aren’t at yet and probably will never be.
Message to seller: Your photos are too small, all 150 of them, so it does no good to boast about 150 photos when the detail in your 127 KB images makes it hard to determine how much rust and how many holes there are in the floors. Fortunately the holes are large enough to see despite the poor resolution. Making it difficult for buyers to see what you are selling doesn’t do you or your car any favors.
And please don’t use that annoying Vendio image hosting where you need to manually bring up, and then close out of each individual photo.