Junkyard Find: 1978 Alfa Romeo Spider

While Fiat 124 Sport Spiders are commonplace in junkyards, the Alfa Romeo Spider has remained sufficiently valuable that few examples make it to the kind of self-service, high-inventory-turnover wrecking yards I frequent for this series. We’ve seen this ’74 and that’s it prior to today (though I have passed by a few junked Alfa Spiders that were picked clean before I got there). The Alfa Spider was more expensive than the Fiat Spider when new— in 1978, the Alfa listed at $9,195 (about the same as a new ’78 BMW 320i), while the Fiat cost a mere $6,495 (just a bit more than a Volkswagen Scirocco)— and American Alfa Romeo fanatics have always been more maniacally obsessed than Fiat fanatics. Here’s an unrusted, not-yet-completely-stripped ’78 that I found in a San Francisco Bay Area yard a couple months back.

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  • Theflyersfan After looking it over, Honda, I want royalties for this one: The Honda Yawn.
  • V8fairy Not scared, but I would be reluctant to put my trust in it. The technology is just not quite there yet
  • V8fairy Headlights that switch on/off with the ignition - similar to the requirement that Sweden has- lights must run any time the car is on.Definitely knobs and buttons, touchscreens should only be for navigation and phone mirroring and configuration of non essential items like stereo balance/ fade etc>Bagpipes for following too close.A following distance warning system - I'd be happy to see made mandatory. And bagpipes would be a good choice for this, so hard to put up with!ABS probably should be a mandatory requirementI personally would like to have blind spot monitoring, although should absolutely NOT be mandatory. Is there a blind spot monitoring kit that could be rerofitted to a 1980 Cadillac?
  • IBx1 A manual transmission
  • Bd2 All these inane posts (often referencing Hyundai, Kia) the past week are by "Anal" who has been using my handle, so just ignore them...