The Alpha Spider: A Driving Experience Like No Other

In normal driving mode, you know it's quick. This tub is so much lower than the frame rails, really sitting down in this car. I mean, I've actually got some headroom here, oh well, because the top is off. But I mean, you've got some headroom, you sit low. The turbo boosts a lot of fun. It's cliche to say go-kart handling, but it really is go-kart handling. It's so incredible that you don't need power steering, so you've got pretty much just what you feel through the road. You feel the road.

Let's see how she goes. Okay, that's pretty good. And that's not even in uh with full power. You know, modern engines now they're on timers. You've got to have three four 500 miles on it before you get full power. This is true of the new Corvette of a lot of cars. It's a mandatory break-in rather than trusting the owner to do the break and the computer does it for you. So that's pretty good, I don't know how much power I had there but it felt like 70-80 percent at least. So it's no slouch.

The steering is what's really the key to this car. It's incredibly nice to drive. I just smile when that boost kicks in on the turbo. You feel the engine pull as hard as you can, then all of a sudden you get the next whoosh. It's really cool. I guess they've sold 2000 of these with the hard top to me this is the only way to get this car as a spider as a convertible, especially here in California. I mean, you know on a day like today you put the heater on a little bit it's a little cold outside and you still get that fresh cool air. Your feet stay warm.

You know classic just classic sort of open top motoring. And I drop one of those Julia sedans and boy is that a nice driving car. I mean, Alphas are all about handling. You know this kind of reminds me a little bit of the Lotus. You don't have a lot of the fancy screens and all the other stuff but you've got uh you've got handling in space. Donald Osborne, uh we do the um CNBC show with he's got one. He oh god, he loves that thing.

I don't think it's insulting to say it's like an affordable Ferrari because I think it is. What can I tell you? A chassis very stiff carbon fiber monocoque as he said it's it's the only car under 200 grams of the fully carbon fiber monocoque. 238 horsepower, 6-speed transmission. It's quite fast and it handles. I mean it doesn't have a lot of the other amenities so this thing is priced in between probably the new Corvette and the Boxster kind of like the Avorra would probably be another staple mate to this.

Depends whether you want to go to Italy or England, I guess it's amazing how much power it has for an under two liter engine. You know that's pretty small and with only what 23 of these coming to the United States, you'll be the not only the first runner on your block, the only one on your block. I mean it pulls very strong. It's impressive. The Italians have some huge tax on engines over 2-2 liters. You know Alpha used to be used to build big motors a 2.9 had twin superchargers on it just an amazing motor.

Victoriano was the engineer, valve Romeo and he did some beautiful engines but then the government steps in and you can't build luxury cars, you got to build people movers that's what happens. But this does move people very quickly. It is great fun when that turbo kicks in you get that whoosh and feel that power come on strong. I'd like to try this again when it has a few more miles on it. So it's only got 100 miles or something on it so it's not really uh the computer has not let it use all its power just yet but the power's there you can sit still pretty quick handles nicely.

Well, that's really the key to this whole thing isn't it? It's it's all about the handling. Uh horsepower is more than adequate quite good actually. This is as fast as any other any of the cars in its class at 60 miles an hour. The trick is it's the exclusivity I thought it'd be fun to do because you just don't see them out there and that's what we try to do in this show, is bringing automobiles you haven't seen before motorcycles too. So anyway, thanks for checking it out and we'll see you next week.

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"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: eni just smile when that boost kicks in on the turbo you know you feel the engine pull as hard as you can then obviously you get that next whoosh it's really cool and with only what 23 of these company coming to the united states you you'll be the not only the first one on your block the only one on your block i mean it pulls very strong it's impressive welcome to the episode of jaylon's garage the car featuring today alfa romeo foresee triputo i think that means like tribute to it's a tribute to stradali i guess you know this is one of those storied brands there's so much romance and history involved with alfa romeo just looking at the badge kind of gets people sort of excited because it just conjures up all sorts of images of fantastic cars especially pre-war alfa romeos they were the premier car in italy long before a ferrari or any of those came along there was alfa romeo if you don't see many of these on the road nowadays it's because they're extremely limited production i drove the introduction car up at pebble beach you know the car show is up there in northern california in 2014 and i loved it the roads up there were just fantastic it was a perfect place for this car 1.7 liter engine about 238 horsepower which is pretty amazing from less than two liters extremely light i'm going to find out the exact weight in just a minute here and you know here on this website we try to do cars that uh you don't get a chance to see very often we do the porsches and the corvettes and those kind of cars but alfred mayo is one of those brands you see the big cities and it comes out it's just sort of it's kind of a niche group it sells on its own name you don't see a lot of advertising from alpha people either know it and they don't and alpha fanatics are well alpha fanatics and they just have to have it so i called uh the company i said hey can we get one of those four c's like i drove back in 2014. it's the one car we haven't done and uh larry dominique is the is the president or the head of alpha male commander uh he said yeah we'll send you one and uh this is it here so hey thanks for doing this this is the perfect color is this like an alfa romeo color it's a it's a special color via de esta it's a three coat red paint right it's very special for this car but i mean this is a color i've seen on a lot of sort of important alfa romeos at car shows it sort of is the official it's not ferrari red it's a deeper red yes but it's unique to alfa romeo isn't it okay uh so what is this car weigh i said about twenty four hundred of twenty four eighty seven oh okay power to weights power to horsepower about 10.4 yeah extremely fast and uh this is a car to compete with corvette porsche boxster in that area there boxster naughty tt right audi tt okay sure and this is the fastest of the three yes we're about a half a second faster than both of those products and that's primarily due to the lightweight isn't it it is literally jay we're the only vehicle about under under 200 000 with a carbon fiber monocot chassis transmission is what how many speed it's a six-speed dual clutch okay dual coach transmission but did they make a standard shift model a manual for this one no no okay okay no all right unfortunately no yeah yeah you think the italians i think you know the sexiest thing in the me in the world when i was a kid was that alpha male gear shift on the the 750 duetto i believe when it came out of the dashboard it was up here and in america back in the early 60s cars came with a three speed you could spend money and get a four speed but only alfa romeo had a five speed and that was like oh that seemed like the most exotic thing in the world to me back in the back in the day it was just just across the the movie the graduate that made really put alpha on the map in america with dustin hoffman and the romantic it was a huge huge hit movie at the time and that car was a star of it so let's go through it here four cylinder four valve per cylinder it is it's it's obviously direct injection turboed right um so it's basically the standard powertrain that we've had right with the tribute or with the 4c um but we've added a lot more cosmetics to it wheels tires and some other aspects as well and i would see four wheel discs of those brembos on there and and 18 inch front 19 triers okay okay uh yeah i mean alfa romeo is really all about the handing and handling and you'll find that out when we take it out in just a minute here nice neat dashboard not overly cluttered not a lot of in fact there's not one switch or button on the steering wheel so that's kind of refreshing it doesn't take a special owner's manual to figure out how no no it's very nice you got paddle shifts standard one side up one side down yeah okay uh what else we got let's take a look well beautiful what they've done with this carbon fiber here this lacquer it's not lacquer you can't use lacquer that's actually carbon fiber it's just the raw carbon fiber okay with a clear coat i guess on it very nice so the idea with the tributa was to bring some just additional visual elements to the interior in particular right seat design the carbon fiber kind of bring a special element to that tributeo so for us with this special edition tribute there's a limited edition plaque in each one with a number right so you actually have a sequence number so you know which one was yours the seed the black brown seat is unique for us the monitor the carbon fiber is unique so with this one jay it's not so much mechanically different than the other 4cs right that we've had but we wanted to make it special from a visual point of view the carbon halo for the vehicle for the roof this is car number 33. it's the last one so what's the last one 33 for north america 23 is coming to the us let's take a look at the engine okay once again the always dependable stick this doesn't break no gas strut to to get loose so lose pressure and fall on your head you see you put the stick in there and boom you're all set there you go look at that this your obviously your trunk compartment here it's got some room there uh and this is a mid engine is it's not a rear engine car correct it's all it's got it really improves the weight balance and uh i love the rear end of this car i love the round i'm always a sucker for round tear lights i always say them and this has some of the most beautiful big and yet not overly so and nicely designed here i like the whole i like the fact it's not a straight line on this car anywhere now are these re-bodied somewhere else do you send them out to a coach builder they done at the factory how was the how are these yeah these these are done at our factory right in italy before they're brought over so what do we have as i said before 1.7 liters which is sort of a one of those numbers that's in alfa romeo history the 1750 was a model number they seemed certain certain manufacturers seem to like certain displacements which makes me laugh as you said it's a four valve twin cam twin cam cam that's a lot of horsepower 238 or 1.7 liter so it must scream and it's it's turbocharged right it is and 0-60 is about 4.1 oh that's that's impressive yeah again you know every time you take out weight you add horsepower so that's what makes it fast easy enough to get to everything seems accessible this is oil filler here dipstick is over there very cool and what is this is it carbon fiber no i think i think it's a composite composite i love the exhaust i love the center exhaust i think we're about ready to take it for a ride anything i'm missing here you know the one the one comment you made about the design and the no straight lines i think that pretty much falls into the alfa romeo dna right yeah that's what we do yeah they really designed beautiful cars you know we actually consider that a balance in our dna beauty and performance i'm surprised they're not all spiders i mean you've sold about 2 100 of the coupes but it seems like this would be the most desirable model you know as we as we finished up the line you know we went from the coop to the spider right and we've gone back and forth but i think this is a great way to finish off the the model for us in north america is with the spider again right right well i'm going to hop in oh the seat goes all the way back there we go there's plenty of leg room so holds very nicely you know this doesn't have the break-in miles yet so you can't go into sport mode that's just regular mode and it's chirping the tires in two of the gears i guess you have to have like 400 miles on this before you can uh before you get it in sport plus oh boy it pulls strong even even even in normal driving mode you know it's it's quick you know this tub is so much lower than the frame rails you really sit down in this car i mean i've actually got some headroom here oh well because the top is off but i mean you've got some headroom you sit low the turbo boosts a lot of fun i know it's cliche to say go-kart handling but it really is go-kart handling it's so incredible that you don't need power steering so you've got you know pretty much just what you feel through the road you feel the road let's see how she goes okay that's pretty good and that's that's not even in uh with full power you know you know modern engines now they're on timers you've got to have three four 500 miles on it before you get full power this is true of the new corvette of a lot of cars it's a mandatory break-in rather than trusting the owner to do the break and the computer does it for you so that's pretty good i don't know how much power i had there but it felt like 70-80 percent at least so it's no slouch the steering is what's really the key to this car it's incredibly nice to drive i just smile when that boost kicks in on the turbo you know you feel the engine pull as hard as you can then all of a sudden you get the next whoosh it's really cool i guess they've sold as i said 2000 of these with the hard top to me this is the only way to get this car as as a spider as a convertible especially here in california i mean you know on a day like today you put the heater on a little bit it's a little cold outside and you still get that fresh cool air your feet stay warm you know classic just classic sort of open top motoring and i drop one of those julia sedans and boy is that a nice driving car i mean alphas are all about handling you know this kind of reminds me a little bit of the lotus you don't have a lot of the fancy screens and all the other stuff but you've got uh you've got handling in space donald osborne uh we do the um cnbc show with he's got one he oh god he loves that thing i don't think it's insulting to say it's like an affordable ferrari because i think it is what can i tell you a chassis very stiff carbon fiber monocoque as he said it's it's the only car under 200 gram of the fully carbon fiber monocoque 238 horsepower 6-speed transmission it's quite fast and it handles i mean it doesn't have a lot of the other amenities so this thing is priced in between probably the new corvette and the boxster kind of like the avora would probably be another staple mate to this depends whether you want to go to italy or england i guess it's amazing how much power it has for an under two liter engine you know that's pretty small and with only what 23 of these company coming to the united states you you'll be the not only the first runner on your block the only one on your block i mean it pulls very strong it's impressive i think the italians have some huge tax on engines over 2-2 liters you know alpha used to be used to build big motors a 2.9 had twin superchargers on it just an amazing motor victoriano was the engineer valve romeo and he did some beautiful engines but then the government steps in and you can't build luxury cars you got to build people movers that's what happens but this does move people very quickly it is great fun when that turbo kicks in you get that whoosh and feel that power come on strong i'd like to try this again when it has a few more it's only got 100 miles or something on it so it's not really uh the computer has not let it use all its power just yet but it should be impressive hear those tires chirp well i'm sorry we weren't able to get full power on this because the engine's not fully broken in but the power's there you can sit still pretty quick handles nicely well handles incredibly that's really the key to this whole thing isn't it it's it's all about the handling uh horsepower is more than adequate quite good actually this is as fast as any other any of the cars in its class at 60 miles an hour the trick is it's the exclusivity i thought it'd be fun to do because you just don't see them out there and that's what we try to do in this show is bringing automobiles you haven't seen before motorcycles too so anyway thanks for checking it out and we'll see you next week ahi just smile when that boost kicks in on the turbo you know you feel the engine pull as hard as you can then obviously you get that next whoosh it's really cool and with only what 23 of these company coming to the united states you you'll be the not only the first one on your block the only one on your block i mean it pulls very strong it's impressive welcome to the episode of jaylon's garage the car featuring today alfa romeo foresee triputo i think that means like tribute to it's a tribute to stradali i guess you know this is one of those storied brands there's so much romance and history involved with alfa romeo just looking at the badge kind of gets people sort of excited because it just conjures up all sorts of images of fantastic cars especially pre-war alfa romeos they were the premier car in italy long before a ferrari or any of those came along there was alfa romeo if you don't see many of these on the road nowadays it's because they're extremely limited production i drove the introduction car up at pebble beach you know the car show is up there in northern california in 2014 and i loved it the roads up there were just fantastic it was a perfect place for this car 1.7 liter engine about 238 horsepower which is pretty amazing from less than two liters extremely light i'm going to find out the exact weight in just a minute here and you know here on this website we try to do cars that uh you don't get a chance to see very often we do the porsches and the corvettes and those kind of cars but alfred mayo is one of those brands you see the big cities and it comes out it's just sort of it's kind of a niche group it sells on its own name you don't see a lot of advertising from alpha people either know it and they don't and alpha fanatics are well alpha fanatics and they just have to have it so i called uh the company i said hey can we get one of those four c's like i drove back in 2014. it's the one car we haven't done and uh larry dominique is the is the president or the head of alpha male commander uh he said yeah we'll send you one and uh this is it here so hey thanks for doing this this is the perfect color is this like an alfa romeo color it's a it's a special color via de esta it's a three coat red paint right it's very special for this car but i mean this is a color i've seen on a lot of sort of important alfa romeos at car shows it sort of is the official it's not ferrari red it's a deeper red yes but it's unique to alfa romeo isn't it okay uh so what is this car weigh i said about twenty four hundred of twenty four eighty seven oh okay power to weights power to horsepower about 10.4 yeah extremely fast and uh this is a car to compete with corvette porsche boxster in that area there boxster naughty tt right audi tt okay sure and this is the fastest of the three yes we're about a half a second faster than both of those products and that's primarily due to the lightweight isn't it it is literally jay we're the only vehicle about under under 200 000 with a carbon fiber monocot chassis transmission is what how many speed it's a six-speed dual clutch okay dual coach transmission but did they make a standard shift model a manual for this one no no okay okay no all right unfortunately no yeah yeah you think the italians i think you know the sexiest thing in the me in the world when i was a kid was that alpha male gear shift on the the 750 duetto i believe when it came out of the dashboard it was up here and in america back in the early 60s cars came with a three speed you could spend money and get a four speed but only alfa romeo had a five speed and that was like oh that seemed like the most exotic thing in the world to me back in the back in the day it was just just across the the movie the graduate that made really put alpha on the map in america with dustin hoffman and the romantic it was a huge huge hit movie at the time and that car was a star of it so let's go through it here four cylinder four valve per cylinder it is it's it's obviously direct injection turboed right um so it's basically the standard powertrain that we've had right with the tribute or with the 4c um but we've added a lot more cosmetics to it wheels tires and some other aspects as well and i would see four wheel discs of those brembos on there and and 18 inch front 19 triers okay okay uh yeah i mean alfa romeo is really all about the handing and handling and you'll find that out when we take it out in just a minute here nice neat dashboard not overly cluttered not a lot of in fact there's not one switch or button on the steering wheel so that's kind of refreshing it doesn't take a special owner's manual to figure out how no no it's very nice you got paddle shifts standard one side up one side down yeah okay uh what else we got let's take a look well beautiful what they've done with this carbon fiber here this lacquer it's not lacquer you can't use lacquer that's actually carbon fiber it's just the raw carbon fiber okay with a clear coat i guess on it very nice so the idea with the tributa was to bring some just additional visual elements to the interior in particular right seat design the carbon fiber kind of bring a special element to that tributeo so for us with this special edition tribute there's a limited edition plaque in each one with a number right so you actually have a sequence number so you know which one was yours the seed the black brown seat is unique for us the monitor the carbon fiber is unique so with this one jay it's not so much mechanically different than the other 4cs right that we've had but we wanted to make it special from a visual point of view the carbon halo for the vehicle for the roof this is car number 33. it's the last one so what's the last one 33 for north america 23 is coming to the us let's take a look at the engine okay once again the always dependable stick this doesn't break no gas strut to to get loose so lose pressure and fall on your head you see you put the stick in there and boom you're all set there you go look at that this your obviously your trunk compartment here it's got some room there uh and this is a mid engine is it's not a rear engine car correct it's all it's got it really improves the weight balance and uh i love the rear end of this car i love the round i'm always a sucker for round tear lights i always say them and this has some of the most beautiful big and yet not overly so and nicely designed here i like the whole i like the fact it's not a straight line on this car anywhere now are these re-bodied somewhere else do you send them out to a coach builder they done at the factory how was the how are these yeah these these are done at our factory right in italy before they're brought over so what do we have as i said before 1.7 liters which is sort of a one of those numbers that's in alfa romeo history the 1750 was a model number they seemed certain certain manufacturers seem to like certain displacements which makes me laugh as you said it's a four valve twin cam twin cam cam that's a lot of horsepower 238 or 1.7 liter so it must scream and it's it's turbocharged right it is and 0-60 is about 4.1 oh that's that's impressive yeah again you know every time you take out weight you add horsepower so that's what makes it fast easy enough to get to everything seems accessible this is oil filler here dipstick is over there very cool and what is this is it carbon fiber no i think i think it's a composite composite i love the exhaust i love the center exhaust i think we're about ready to take it for a ride anything i'm missing here you know the one the one comment you made about the design and the no straight lines i think that pretty much falls into the alfa romeo dna right yeah that's what we do yeah they really designed beautiful cars you know we actually consider that a balance in our dna beauty and performance i'm surprised they're not all spiders i mean you've sold about 2 100 of the coupes but it seems like this would be the most desirable model you know as we as we finished up the line you know we went from the coop to the spider right and we've gone back and forth but i think this is a great way to finish off the the model for us in north america is with the spider again right right well i'm going to hop in oh the seat goes all the way back there we go there's plenty of leg room so holds very nicely you know this doesn't have the break-in miles yet so you can't go into sport mode that's just regular mode and it's chirping the tires in two of the gears i guess you have to have like 400 miles on this before you can uh before you get it in sport plus oh boy it pulls strong even even even in normal driving mode you know it's it's quick you know this tub is so much lower than the frame rails you really sit down in this car i mean i've actually got some headroom here oh well because the top is off but i mean you've got some headroom you sit low the turbo boosts a lot of fun i know it's cliche to say go-kart handling but it really is go-kart handling it's so incredible that you don't need power steering so you've got you know pretty much just what you feel through the road you feel the road let's see how she goes okay that's pretty good and that's that's not even in uh with full power you know you know modern engines now they're on timers you've got to have three four 500 miles on it before you get full power this is true of the new corvette of a lot of cars it's a mandatory break-in rather than trusting the owner to do the break and the computer does it for you so that's pretty good i don't know how much power i had there but it felt like 70-80 percent at least so it's no slouch the steering is what's really the key to this car it's incredibly nice to drive i just smile when that boost kicks in on the turbo you know you feel the engine pull as hard as you can then all of a sudden you get the next whoosh it's really cool i guess they've sold as i said 2000 of these with the hard top to me this is the only way to get this car as as a spider as a convertible especially here in california i mean you know on a day like today you put the heater on a little bit it's a little cold outside and you still get that fresh cool air your feet stay warm you know classic just classic sort of open top motoring and i drop one of those julia sedans and boy is that a nice driving car i mean alphas are all about handling you know this kind of reminds me a little bit of the lotus you don't have a lot of the fancy screens and all the other stuff but you've got uh you've got handling in space donald osborne uh we do the um cnbc show with he's got one he oh god he loves that thing i don't think it's insulting to say it's like an affordable ferrari because i think it is what can i tell you a chassis very stiff carbon fiber monocoque as he said it's it's the only car under 200 gram of the fully carbon fiber monocoque 238 horsepower 6-speed transmission it's quite fast and it handles i mean it doesn't have a lot of the other amenities so this thing is priced in between probably the new corvette and the boxster kind of like the avora would probably be another staple mate to this depends whether you want to go to italy or england i guess it's amazing how much power it has for an under two liter engine you know that's pretty small and with only what 23 of these company coming to the united states you you'll be the not only the first runner on your block the only one on your block i mean it pulls very strong it's impressive i think the italians have some huge tax on engines over 2-2 liters you know alpha used to be used to build big motors a 2.9 had twin superchargers on it just an amazing motor victoriano was the engineer valve romeo and he did some beautiful engines but then the government steps in and you can't build luxury cars you got to build people movers that's what happens but this does move people very quickly it is great fun when that turbo kicks in you get that whoosh and feel that power come on strong i'd like to try this again when it has a few more it's only got 100 miles or something on it so it's not really uh the computer has not let it use all its power just yet but it should be impressive hear those tires chirp well i'm sorry we weren't able to get full power on this because the engine's not fully broken in but the power's there you can sit still pretty quick handles nicely well handles incredibly that's really the key to this whole thing isn't it it's it's all about the handling uh horsepower is more than adequate quite good actually this is as fast as any other any of the cars in its class at 60 miles an hour the trick is it's the exclusivity i thought it'd be fun to do because you just don't see them out there and that's what we try to do in this show is bringing automobiles you haven't seen before motorcycles too so anyway thanks for checking it out and we'll see you next week ah\n"