Alfa Romeo 2600 Spider (1962-1965)

The success of the Giulietta Sprint and Spider turned Alfa Romeo into a successful mass manufacturer. In 1959, for example, almost twice as many vehicles were built as had previously been produced in total since the company had been founded. There had been an upper class at Alfa Romeo even before the end of the war. The famous Alfa 1900 from 1950 was, for example, a limousine that won every road race it entered.

The time had come to present the customers with a prestige product, and by the start of the 'sixties four cylinders were already simply not enough to achieve this. Sufficient experience with larger displacements and six-cylinder and eight-cylinder engines had already been gained as early as during the 'thirties and 'forties, often on chassis from Carrozzeria Touring in Milan. These vehicle builders were called upon to give the revived six-cylinder design an appropriate exterior.

The "Superleggera" concept from Touring, a lightweight design of steel tubes clad in aluminium, made it possible for the big four-seater convertible, at an unladen weight of only 1220 kg, to accelerate to 200 km/h. In comparison with the Giulietta and Giulia Spider, the Touring Spider, which in the early years was also available with the 2000 cc engine rating from the limousine of the same name, was a real king among cars, and right from the start went into hard competition against others from its own company and from other manufacturers.

A total of 2,253 of these were built between 1962 and 1965, and sold very well in the USA in particular.