159 (939) 2005 - 2011

First owner was Mrs J Maples, London NW2. Purchased new 27/06/2008 from Désira price £25,500. The original registration was LM08NCF.

Second owner was Mr P Preston, Ferndown BH22. Purchased 05/03/2016 from Meridan Milano, Bournemouth with 18,910 miles on the clock.

I am the third owner Adam Taylor, Hertford in Hertfordshire. Purchased 01/06/2019 from Veloces, Barnet with 30,000 miles on the clock. Registration changed to L321DER which was the closest I could find to SPIDER on my budget. 

My first experience of Alfa was back in the mid 80's when I was 21. A friend had a white Alfa Sud and we would drive up from London to Norwich and Grimsby to visit friends. It was, fun, felt fast, looked and sounded cool, but was rather unreliable and more than a little rusty in places. Sadly I could not afford one and settled for an equally rusty Mini 1000.

Over the years I always had my eye on Alfas but it was the launch of the little 147 that tempted me to purchase my first Alfa. A silver 147 1.6 Lusso AX51CWO. I really loved that car, it served me well over 10 years and 100,000 miles. The day i sold it and it drove off towards Bedford I genuinely had a tear in my eye. I have checked to see if it is still around and it shows as SORN but i am not confident it is still out there.

My second Alfa was  beautiful red 159Ti 1.75TBi EF10YHN. Whilst I prefer a smaller car, the looks of the 159 just won me over and the 1.75TBi engine was just so responsive, albeit not very economical. I owned this car for 5 years and did a fair few trouble free miles, however, the children were growing up and found the rear seats too hard which meant family trips were made in my wife's ultra reliable and comfy Kia. This got me thinking. I love an open top car, not practical in the UK I know, but if you get the bug it is hard to shake off, and having had 3 convertibles in the past ( Astra GTE Mk 2, Rover 216, Mini Cooper S) the 939 Spider was a convertible I just couldn't get out of my mind, and when it became clear most of my driving was child free there was no doubt in my mind, I had to have one. Now I do. My every day drive. Happy man.

The 939 Spider was introduced at the 2006 Geneva Motor Show where it received the Cabrio of the year award. Manufactured by Pininafarina and Marketed by Alfa Romeo. 12,488 (Wikipedia) were made. It also won the most beautiful car in the world award at the 21st annual International Automobile Festival in the same year.

My LE model was launched in 2008. It was lighter with a slight face lift and more contoured seats than the 2007 models. It came in a choice if 3 colour combinations. Carbonic black, Alfa red and Ghiaccio white. It also had 19 inch wheels. The interior came with a choice of either black, tan or red leather upholstery.  The seats were electrically adjustable and heated with position memory function. The door mirrors were electric with auto retract when the car is locked. It came with Fiat Groups Blue&Me hands-free system with voice recognition and media player.

The engine is a 185 bhp 2.2L JTS petrol engine. It can accelerate from 0 to 62 mph in about 8.8 seconds and can reach a top speed of more than 139 mph. It is much more a grand tourer than a sports car.