Spider (Type 939) 2006 - Current

I bought my first Spider - a 3.2 Q4 manual - in March 2013. I loved that car - and it led to me volunteering to act as Registrar for the 939 Spider. Sadly, just under four years later in January 2017 my circumstances changed and I had to - very reluctantly let it go.

A year or so later, I got off a tram at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games media centre and almost got run over by an almost identical car. That was enough. I walked straight in to the media centre and fired up Auto Trader. I had only two criteria - it had to be another V6 and it had to be either red or Misano blue.

I didn't find one immediately, but on my return to the UK I came across a Club member with a blue V6 looking for a new home. It was an automatic, which was a bit of an unknown quantity, but was otherwise perfect. Six years later, it's had its moments, but I still love it.

After almost three years of investigation, irritating noises and failed repairs, my Spider will finally pull away without making a horrendous clonking noises. For most of the first two and a half years, it was fine once you were moving. And then, it wasn't.

I dropped the car off at Alfa Workshop in November and the propshaft was removed and sent to a propshaft specialist.

With the propshaft off it was easy to see the – minor but noisy - damage the propshaft had been doing to the exhaust heatshield. The bill arrived in early December and we were told that the prop was on its way.

Which way it went isn’t entirely clear as it took another 14 days to travel 60 miles. But, do you know what? I don’t care. Because it’s fixed! It runs perfectly without a single noise – worrying, embarrassing or otherwise!

As you can see from the accompanying pictures, it looks as good as new and runs that way! In terms of what they did, the paperwork says ‘Remake Alfa Romeo’, which is a slight exaggeration, but they might as well have done – the car’s transformed.

What they actually did was to cut the propshaft up, fit new (still non-serviceable, sadly) bearings, weld it back together and balance it all.

I couldn’t be happier!