Alfa Romeo Spider

As is always easier to forgive the girl who hits on you a drink in a bar, if it looks like Keira Knightley younger, prettier sister instead of maiden aunt Anne Widdecombe, making it possible to forgive Alfa Spider almost all errors. But Jeez, it has a few.

It all starts very well. Slip into the comfortable seat, the driver down. Enjoy the clean interior touches: the aluminum interior, beautiful purple skin.

Press the button to lower the roof, to treat your thinning terrine to welcome a fresh dose of sunshine in winter. Alarm clock from the ceiling as the mechanism to break the plastic on the back of the bow passenger and deposits, with a driving, mechanical crisis, in the bowels of a retractable roof space. Once maybe, but not the best first impression.

Start the engine and the feeling there, unmistakable roar of diesel engines. It is a little novelty, this, and even some esteemed colleagues of TG to find the idea of ​​drop-top diesel Anathema, I realize, at least in theory.

I agree that the click of an oil burner five-cylinder sound can not provide enough of a commitment, for example, a V6 throat, but who have sacrificed all pretense of performance for the exposure of follicles outdoors which could also cover the practical and economic sensibileness a diesel.

The problem is that this 2.4-liter turbodiesel engine is not very practical. Or economically feasible. Alfa loan 40mpg combined fuel consumption, but also my feather-footed effort over the highway, I could not break the mid-twenties.

Weight is the big problem here. Even as an essence, the spider is not the lightest convertible around, but the bulk addition of a diesel unit before the media that tipped the scales at a massive 1660 kg. The Audi TT Roadster weighs just 1295 kg. The mystery of the disappearance was solved in the final Italian pastries.

Predictably, all the weight is not good news for treatment. Even if the trip is fairly resolved, there is little vim and vitality to the front-wheel drive equivalent Spider a problem exacerbated by a diesel delivery lazy.

00-60 Sprint takes 8.4 seconds - almost two seconds slower than the TT 2.0 liter gasoline - and the engine never feels really like the acquisition of all of the wonderful couple. Below 2500 rpm, Spider and fights his battle to lose ground when the power runs out too quickly upwards, ie, it is always through the cleavage of a six-speed to find the right relationship.

Even if you are happy that seethes around at low revs, you have to manage some pretty impressive to justify economy spider original price.

The diesel version starts at £ 28.995: make four Grand expensive than the TT 2.0-liter and even a couple of more hairy chested Grand Nissan 350Z (which lairy as it is, never tried to eat his own body parts ). And that's before you've specced the red leather interior, beautiful. As you wish.

Everything is what you should say, in my role as a cold-blooded, flint with critical eyes, as when you think you need a spider in your life, you must run fast in the opposite direction and take a long shower of cold water. Buy instead of TT. Buy a barge. Spend your money on the construction of a luxury hotel in central Baghdad (motto: suspicious package holidays for the whole family). It is a wise investment.

But something makes me say that. Just look at the spider. It's a nice car as strangers to race 100 meters through a fleet of Tesco on a cold morning just to take a picture of him on his camera phone. A car so beautiful, like mop red wine on his shirt and explained to Ms. Knightley Jr. was totally his fault and "not really, let me buy an I-repeat, can forgive anything.

So if you're seduced by looks alone, I do not feel bad. You're just weak. So am I.

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