Used Car of the Day: 1986 Alfa Romeo Spider Graduate

Tim Healey
by Tim Healey

Today we have another Alfa. This 1986 Alfa Romeo Spider Graduate has about 50,000 miles on the odometer and a clean title.

With the exception of the mirrors and perhaps the Blaupunkt audio, it appears to be all original.


Of course, we all know you don't need a quadraphonic Blaupunkt, you need a curveball. But I digress.

The paint appears to be in good shape save for some spider cracking. The windows are roll-up -- since door windows typically do roll up and down, I assume the seller means manual crank -- and the car does NOT have A/C. But it is a softtop convertible, so natural A/C it is.

Other a wonky fuel-door cable, it seems like the car is mechanically sound.

You can click here to see this upstate New York-based car. The ask is $12,500.

[Images: Seller]

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Tim Healey
Tim Healey

Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.

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  • Add Lightness Add Lightness on Dec 16, 2023

    The coupe version (GTVs) got riven in winter and started to dissolve very quickly but the spiders were fair weather cars and hence, there are lots more of them. That and a racing lineage are the main reason GTVs are worth several times as much as Spiders.

    I remember the GTV/2002/510 wars on the track in the 70s.

  • Danddd Danddd on Dec 16, 2023

    Seems like if you want a toss-able convertible sports car, a Miata would suffice without the headaches of this Alfa.

    One like this maybe for less.

  • Theflyersfan With sedans, especially, I wonder how many of those sales are to rental fleets. With the exception of the Civic and Accord, there are still rows of sedans mixed in with the RAV4s at every airport rental lot. I doubt the breakdown in sales is publicly published, so who knows... GM isn't out of the sedan business - Cadillac exists and I can't believe I'm typing this but they are actually decent - and I think they are making a huge mistake, especially if there's an extended oil price hike (cough...Iran...cough) and people want smaller and hybrids. But if one is only tied to the quarterly shareholder reports and not trends and the big picture, bad decisions like this get made.
  • Wjtinfwb Not proud of what Stellantis is rolling out?
  • Wjtinfwb Absolutely. But not incredibly high-tech, AWD, mega performance sedans with amazing styling and outrageous price tags. GM needs a new Impala and LeSabre. 6 passenger, comfortable, conservative, dead nuts reliable and inexpensive enough for a family guy making 70k a year or less to be able to afford. Ford should bring back the Fusion, modernized, maybe a bit bigger and give us that Hybrid option again. An updated Taurus, harkening back to the Gen 1 and updated version that easily hold 6, offer a huge trunk, elevated handling and ride and modest power that offers great fuel economy. Like the GM have a version that a working mom can afford. The last decade car makers have focused on building cars that American's want, but eliminated what they need. When a Ford Escape of Chevy Blazer can be optioned up to 50k, you've lost the plot.
  • Willie If both nations were actually free market economies I would be totally opposed. The US is closer to being one, but China does a lot to prop up the sectors they want to dominate allowing them to sell WAY below cost, functionally dumping their goods in our market to destroy competition. I have seen this in my area recently with shrimp farmed by Chinese comglomerates being sold super cheap to push local producers (who have to live at US prices and obey US laws) out of business.China also has VERY lax safety and environmental laws which reduce costs greatly. It isn't an equal playing field, they don't play fair.
  • Willie ~300,000 Camrys and ~200,000 Accords say there is still a market. My wife has a Camry and we have no desire for a payment on something that has worse fuel economy.
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