Burbling V6. Surefooted All Wheel Drive. Superbly appointed. Beautifully formed. From less than $195 per day, self drive hire the most modern of Alfa Spiders. With refinement at German levels but the character very definitely still Italianate, this is a very comfortable roadster. It’s also a sonorous sports car with heart and soul, yet with plenty of space for two. Sultry and muscular, this is a very exclusive treat to be able to drive on stunning roads.

Refined, engaging, fun, satisfying. It’s 3.2 litre V6 with all wheel drive is very confidence inspiring, feeling firmly planted on the road. It has a start/stop button…mmm, nice. The tiptronic gearbox has multiple personalities, able to effortlessly cruise in plain auto mode or give you the choice of the gears in manual change tiptronic mode. However, if you really want to play, the steering mounted paddle shifters allow you you to seriously shift things, even blip the throttle for extra rasp as you go. Belissimo!

Feeling unbelievably smug that you have one of the most distinctive, modern, charismatic and rare Italian sports cars as a hire car? There’s not a lot that’s annoyingly idiosyncratic with this Alfa. As with most paddle shifters, you can lose track of where they are when you’re really working the steering wheel, but the tiptronic manual gear lever is always there. The wind deflector is fantastically efficient at keeping the cold draughts from your neck, and the dual zone climate control means each occupant can have conditions just how they like them. And the glass rear window with a reversing camera and rear sonar means parking is the right kind of breeze too. It even has a decent sized boot that’s not compromised when the roof is down…flair with practicality – of course, if you want more boot space, you could opt for a Corolla as your hire car….

Five airbags, ABS, traction control, roll over hoops, this latest model Alfa Spider is one of our safest cars ….plus she’s very well looked after and has to pass the Certificate of Fitness (CoF) test required for all rental cars every 6 months. 

Superb, as new condition. The leather fully electrically adjustable seats and brushed aluminum facia, like the rest of the car are virtually showroom condition, with a very low mileage for a car of this age.

Quite a decent number of multiple soft bags. The boot, unaffected by whether the roof is up or down, is deep and wide, and there’s a narrow extra storage space behind the seats, with added cubby bins. Please refer to the Seating & Luggage tab above for exact dimensions.

Bit of a dearth of decent music this year, however for 2009 the best driving tracks are:

• Magnificent – U2
  
• Turn Around -Sola Rosa
• Walk On By – Diana Krall
  

Now we acknowledge driving music is a very subjective thing, but clearly here, we’re right. So download, hire our Portable Bluetooth Speaker & enjoy!

Check out the rest of our classic best road trip driving tracks here and put RentAClassic on your play list… 

Have you heard of a slow Italian sports car….?

“….an Alfa is a portal through which all petrolheads must pass if they genuinely want to know what it is that differentiates a car from a toaster or a washing machine.“

“…and here’s your opportunity….!” 

Different strokes for different folks….

Do you want sensible things like comfort, luggage space, affordability (OK….)….

or more indulgent stuff like luxury, handling and powwwwerrrrr (yeah)?!

We think all our cars are totally brilliant, but here’s how this Alfa compares to our other cars on some key rental criteria.