The Beginning

To start at the beginning, I need to go back a few years. I was looking at convertibles to replace my girlfriend's 87 Celica. I came across the Alfa Romeo Spider, and was immediately taken by it. We ended up not replacing the Celica at the time, and it fell off my radar.

Fast forward a few years. Since the time we had been originally looking, more options became available. We decided that we could go with a roadster instead of a 2+2 or a 4 seater, which opened up a lot of options. Doing a lot more research, I narrowed down our search to the 350z, the Boxster, or the Z4. She narrowed the search down to the Sky or the 350Z. After test driving the 350 and the Sky, while she like the look of the Sky more, she couldn't stand how bad the blind spots were in it. And it was bad. And since this was going to be her daily driver, she needed to be able to see out of it even with the top up. So, the 35o it was. I'm getting there....

So during this time, I decided I wanted a Boxster. A Porsche has always been a "dream" car for me. Maybe it has something to do with my uncle coming to visit when I was young and getting a ride in his (back in the early 80s), I don't know, but I had my heart set on a Boxster, and came very, very close to getting one. Took it for two test drives, and on the second one my girlfriend went with me and drove it. She ended up loving it, and even said if she had driven it before the 350 it might have made the decision tough, and she HATES Porsches.

So, let's get to how the Spider fits into this. As I was looking at convertibles, the Spider kept intriguing me. I absolutely love the Pininfarina design. Simple yet elegant, the lines are classic, but yet timeless. So I started looking into it, comparing it to the Fiat Spider (not as attractive, in my opinion) and the MG, another classic roadster that I have liked since I was a kid. More and more I discovered that there were a lot of after market options for parts, and that fixing one up wouldn't be any more expensive than an American car, in fact, could be cheaper than a lot of them.

So I kept looking at them, researching parts, what to look out for, what would need to be done. I was also looking at the different series, deciding which would be best. Really, it came down to the look. The S1, or the Duetto, is a beautiful car, with it's elegant boat tail. However, rather expensive, and out of my price range to start. The S3 is just isn't attractive to me, with the useless and ugly rear spoiler, and bumpers that were supposed to fit the car more than the tacked on 5 mph buggy bumpers of the S2, but still seemed like an afterthought and didn't enhance the car. I also love the look of the gauges on the console, instead of all in the gauge cluster like they are after the S2 cars. I also wanted a simple car, without a lot of the electronics on the newer ones, so I could feel more comfortable working on it. So to keep a long story from getting longer, I went with a Series 2a, a 1975. Bought it on Ebay, flew out to Connecticut to get it, and after a few adventures, and a stop over on the cape to see my sister and the boys, drove it back to Chicago.