Junkyard Find: 1981 Alfa Romeo Spider

Murilee Martin
by Murilee Martin

Prices for (non- 164) Alfa Romeos have been getting somewhat crazy in recent years, but it’s still possible to get a restorable 1970s or 1980s Spider for non-insane bucks. The proof of this is that rougher examples still show up now and then at the self-service wrecking yards I frequent. In this series so far, we’ve seen this ’74, this ’78, and now today’s ’81.

The interior is ugly, but it doesn’t show the atomic-testing-grade obliteration that Colorado convertibles get when left outside for years with no top.

Alfa Spiders love to rust, even in single-digit-humidity Colorado.

Not worth restoring, but a good parts car.

Its final parking place is next to a Mazda RX-7.






Murilee Martin
Murilee Martin

Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.

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  • Cc-rider Cc-rider on Jul 02, 2014

    The 1981 cars had the worst power of the Spica injection. The 1982 got Bosch injection that carried over for a number of years. I love the shape of the 91-94 spiders but dislike the dash changes that went along with the re-skin. The dual binnacle dash like in this one are super cool.

  • -Nate -Nate on Jul 02, 2014

    Kinda sad IMO ; I'm no Alfa lover but I grew up thinking they were special in a very good way . Oddly these from the late 1960's through mid 1970's are perennials in the So. Cal. self - service junkyards , rust & dent free , just sun baked In the first few years of the ' Charity Car Auction ' craze (when YOU got to write in the donated vehicles $ value) there were scads and scads of these from inside storage , they ran O.K. but rarely fetched over $125 at the auctions . Not worth the cosmetics needed I guess . -Nate

  • 1995 SC At least you can still get one. There isn't much for Ford folks to be happy about nowadays, but the existence of the Mustang and the fact that the lessons from back in the 90s when Ford tried to kill it and replace it with the then flavor of the day seem to have been learned (the only lessons they seem to remember) are a win not only for Ford folks but for car people in general. One day my Super Coupe will pop its headgaskets (I know it will...I read it on the Internet). I hope I will still be physically up to dropping the supercharged Terminator Cobra motor into it. in all seriousness, The Mustang is a.win for car guys.
  • Lorenzo Heh. The major powers, military or economic, set up these regulators for the smaller countries - the big guys do what they want, and always have. Are the Chinese that unaware?
  • Lorenzo The original 4-Runner, by its very name, promised something different in the future. What happened?
  • Lorenzo At my age, excitement is dangerous. one thing to note: the older models being displayed are more stylish than their current versions, and the old Subaru Forester looks more utilitarian than the current version. I thought the annual model change was dead.
  • Lorenzo Well, it was never an off-roader, much less a military vehicle, so let the people with too much money play make believe.
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