Restorable Roadster: 1984 Alfa Romeo Spider

The Alfa Romeo Spider remains one of the more attainable vintage cars that gives you a fast-track to owning something the rest of the world will think cost you a pretty penny. However, those of us in the hobby know that this is a car produced in such significant quantities that it will never be costly to buy unless you find a time capsule or step up to one of the earliest iterations of the model. This particular Spider, affectionately known as the “Graduate,” has been parked since 2020 and doesn’t run, and the seller is selling it with no reserve.

Now, I often say that one of the more challenging aspects of selling a car produced in high volumes is that there’s no sense of urgency on the buyer’s part. If they don’t get this Spider, there will be another one for sale before too long. I just sold a 996-chassis Porsche 911, and it took a bit longer than I wanted. No doubt, the enthusiast car market isn’t what it once was, but there was also the feeling that – given how many 996s are for sale at a given moment on Marketplace and Craigslist – you could miss out on mine but find another one a day or so later. The same phenomenon works against the Alfa, so I suspect convenience will be a driving force behind someone deciding to drag this non-runner home.

The Alfa is located in Houston, Texas, which makes it a reasonable drive for the lower half of the country. For those of us up north, a Texas car may be worth buying to save money on body repairs a northern car is likely to need, but this Alfa still has some rust to repair in what sounds like the metal behind the rear wheel on the driver’s side. The seller is including a replacement body panel to make it fairly straightforward to cut out the affected area and replace it with clean sheetmetal. The interior is in decent shape overall, but the driver’s sat does show some wear. The dash doesn’t appear to be cracked but the top of the headrests show some sun fading.

The humble 2.0L four-cylinder engine kicks out around 120 horsepower, and comes standard with a surprisingly pleasing exhaust note. The seller’s car doesn’t run, and the last time it did was in 2020. The good news is the seller clearly intended to have it sit idle for a bit, as fuel stabilizer was added to the tank and the battery was removed. Interestingly, he notes that the Alfa served as a daily driver for years, a commitment to open-top motoring that you love to see. This Alfa Romeo Spider is offered here on eBay with just one bid to $2,000 and looks like a potentially affordable way to inject some motoring fun into the last few weeks of summer.