OMG! Is this for real

[bradartigue]

Why would someone go through all this trouble to make a 1980 Spider look like a 1973 Spider? Its not like the early cars are any more hard to find. It looks like a nice car, a nice $15,000.00 car with all of the work that appears to have gone into it. It looks more like the Silver Hornet to me. I think it's a load of crap, really, just a bunch of cheap ass parts from a Spider Point catalog given some ridiculous names. Fancy motor - it's not even the original block or even a block that was ever installed on a Spider 2000. There goes your "numbers matching car" as if FIAT ever made such a thing.

I get that someone who would actually do a concourse-level restoration (something no one would be foolish enough to do given the cost I hope) could spend $30k++ on a Spider. A top notch paint job alone is $10k at a minimum (about 100 hours of labor and some very expensive materials), top notch leather is in the $4k range, a full mechanical rebuild with a Croft motor probably $15k... You could do it. But why? For a similar amount, and I'm sorry but I love our cars up to a point, but for this kind of money you're buying Porsche 356Bs and 911s and even Ferrari 308s and very nice Jags. Not FIATs.

Avanti leather though...man I bet that's nice. Funny how it is stretched like Joan River's skin in the corners. Can you say "bought from a kit?"

[fiat218]

Poor Joan !

[spiderrey]

Arik, have you ever actually seen one of their cars in person? Why so defensive? Just curious.

[AriK]

Arik, have you ever actually seen one of their cars in person? Why so defensive? Just curious.

No, i haven't seen any of their cars in person and please don't anyone accuse me of working for them. I don't know what the bare bones of their "refurbished cars" look like. I also don't know if anyone on this board has seen their cars as well. From past posts i've read about observations from photos about minor stuff like backward ashtrays, clouded lenses and unlevel bumper corners, minor stuff, yes, but can be straightened out in minutes before they deliver the cars. As for unmatched numbers, and other major details which have to be dug deep to find, who here has seen the bare bones and inspected the cars personally?

[spiderrey]

As I said previously. I saw two very close up. And I spoke to someone that actually bought one. Either way, if they were as good as they looked in the pics, they would not be worth the asking price. Not by a long shot.

[narfire]

I get that someone who would actually do a concourse-level restoration (something no one would be foolish enough to do given the cost I hope) could spend $30k++ on a Spider.

Not far off Brad, and that is after you supply the car
http://www.andyspiders.com/restoration.html

I have read here that his cars have won at FFO in the past. I had called him years ago regarding some parts I was looking for and ended up chatting for a bit. Depending on the car's shape and work that has to be done, he mentioned you are around the 30G neighborhood(cdn $). He has been doing it for a number of years, so I'm figuring there are some out there that will spend money to bring these cars back to concourse.
But as mentioned $50-60 thou , USD to boot, for one of these.....lots of fancy words in my opinion....

[fiat218]

Have you ever been on Andy spider page, he sells fiats, they look pretty damn good

[spiderdan]

About 10 years ago a guy in town bought one of Andy's Spiders. He paid around $12k Cdn. Real nice car, but at the time we all considered it a little on the expensive side. But then someone reminded me that Andy is in Toronto...think Maple Leaf hockey fans...'nuff said!

[fiat218]

About 10 years ago a guy in town bought one of Andy's Spiders. He paid around $12k Cdn. Real nice car, but at the time we all considered it a little on the expensive side. But then someone reminded me that Andy is in Toronto...think Maple Leaf hockey fans...'nuff said!

Lol, yea maple leaf

[2500diesel]

While the EBay seller seems to be marketing overpriced poor workmanship to pretentious baby boomers, the price may not seem that out of line in the not too distant future, if the workmanship were at a higher level.
I've seen prices on spiders stay pretty much static over the years, while other makes of similar year and style go higher every year. I saw a VW Karmann Ghia coupe go for over $30k at Amelia Island this spring. It was restored to original condition. No leather made from unborn whale foreskin, or purple tassels, just a beautifully restored original car. It had to be the cream of the Karmann Ghia world.
While I don't expect a rapid rise in value, I think that the FIAT and Alfa spiders are currently undervalued.
As for the Roadster Salon, if their customers are happy, who am I to piss in their cornflakes? If their customers aren't happy, you would think one of them would have found this site by now. In my experience, people who spend the most expect the best, and are not shy about legal remedies.

[RRoller123]

But we need to remember the reality that hardly any complete restoration ever costs less than the worth of the car. The auction settle prices are almost always less than the restoration costs. This is one of the basic things that I seem to hear very consistently across every car show on Velocity, and on nearly every show in which Wayne Carini comments on. It doesn't seem to me that very many of the affluent customers (on all these TV shows anyway) do the restorations for the economic gain, they seem to consistently do it because they just want a really nicely done, complete, accurate and original car to show off. Having not seen any of these cars being questioned here, I will refrain from comment regarding the quality of their restorations. I would be a lousy judge anyway, as I tend to jerry rig a lot of my own Spider repairs.

[4uall]

I saw it as humorous due to the misrepresentation, inaccuracies and the "even comes with a wheel that turns the car in any direction you want to go" kind of cheese factor

all in all, to each their own

[TX82FIAT]

If you paid $40K, $50K, 60K for a spider from Roaster Salon and were disappointed in certain aspects, would you come on this forum with some truly great examples of Spiders and work done by the owners. I don't think if there is an owner of a Roadster Salon Spider we will hear negative comments about the quality from them. No, a self admission from an owner spending that type of cash is counter productive to the pride of ownership.

[toplessexpat]

So - I took a few moments to read their website, and the news article they link to (http://issuu.com/garagestylemagazine/do ... 38/6089342). Apart from a couple of oddities (not sure how 5 cars a year counts as "ultra efficient"), and the visual issues that many have picked up before (I just keep seeing that chrome front bumper as too low...) - I say good luck to them!

I suspect that their cars are pretty reliable, they're warranted, and I must confess - the leatherwork does look very impressive.

I'm not sure that 5 x $60k per annum is a sustainable business, so either their people have other work keeping them busy as a "day job" or there is a higher throughput of BAU work. Either way - keeping more spiders on the road can only be a good thing.

If I total up the parts / hours I've spent on mine - then I've gotta be knocking at the same kind of value. The difference is - these guys are seeking to monetarize that. Given they're IL based - I wonder if they went to FFO?

A

[SoFlaFiat]

You make a good point Andy!