Alfa Romeo is celebrating the 60th anniversary of one of its iconic models, the Spider. Designed by Pininfarina and unveiled on March 10, 1966, during the Geneva Motor Show, the two-seater convertible earned the nickname “Duetto” for its elegance and the harmony of the driver-car association. Its appearance in “The Graduate,” a 1967 film starring Dustin Hoffman, made it even more media-savvy, attracting celebrities like Steve McQueen and Muhammad Ali.
The Alfa Romeo Spider was presented to the press during a cruise in the Mediterranean, with Portofino on the Italian Riviera as the backdrop, but the “Duetto” also traveled by boat between Genoa, Italy, and New York, for the presentation to Americans of a car with which the manufacturer aimed to compete with the British MG B and Triumph TR4 of the time. It went through four generations over 28 years of production, with more than 124,000 units sold.
Under the hood of the original version (1600 Spider) was a 4-cylinder engine with 1.6 liters and 108 hp, an engine known from the Giulia Sprint GT Veloce, combined with a five-speed manual gearbox. Being a roadster that weighed less than 1000 kg, it could go from 0 to 100 km/h in 10.6 seconds and was capable of reaching a top speed of 185 km/h.
