5 THINGS ABOUT THE GORGEOUS RED ALFA DUETTO SPIDER IN THE GRADUATE
MOVIE CARS
1. The two-seat convertible roadster was designed by Battista “Pinin” Farina, founder of the famed Italian coachbuilding company Carrozzeria Pininfarina.
2. Distinctive for its sharp nose, boat-tailed rear end, and enclosed glass headlights, the Duetto – known officially as the Alfa Romeo Spider 1600 because of trademark issues – went into production the year before The Graduate’s debut.
3. Powered by a 1.6-liter, four-cylinder engine, the Duetto Spider could do 0-60 in about 10 seconds and had a top speed of 118 mph.
4. The car’s inclusion in the film may have been an early example of product placement – Dustin Hoffman’s uncle was an Alfa Romeo importer.
5. The Duetto Spider wasn’t commercially successful – its $4,000 price proved to be prohibitive. Only about 6,000 of the Series 1 Spiders were produced before the Spider Veloce 1750 replaced it. In the 1980s, Alfa Romeo introduced a Spider model with a Graduate trim level.