Re: Origin of term "Spider"

[Simon Favre <simon@domain.elided>]

OK, so I'm short on hard facts here, but I think you guys are forgetting
one thing. It's all marketing. The fact that both the Italians and Germans
chose to use an English or English-sounding word (there's no such word as
Spyder), attests to the fact that selling cars was their goal, not
promoting a true cross section of Italian (or German) domestic culture.

The story about the long-legged coach came from a previous Digest from
quite a while ago. I don't remember such umbrage evident then. Perhaps
memory IS the second thing to go...

Perhaps the one word missing from my little fairy tale is RICH families.
Those who could AFFORD to have 2 or more carriages might have a Spider
for weekend jaunts. Let's also remember who it was buying most of the
pre-war Alfa Romeo automobiles. The filthy rich of Northern Italy who
could afford them, as well as wealthy dilletantes from other countries.
Hand built cars from the finest coachbuilders in Italy weren't the staff
of life among people who could barely afford shoes.

Since, as John Hertzmann is fond of pointing out, the vast majority of
Alfa's production was sedans (now that's DEFINITELY a word that pre-dates
the car), then the Spider was always considered a pleasure car for those
who could afford several. So why not use a foreign word to market it? It 
would have appealed to the people who thought of themselves as part of
the international upper crust (pre jet-set).

Dana Loomis wrote:
> 
> Concerning the origin of the name "spider," for open cars, Simon wrote:
...
> 
> Nice story, but there has to be more to the etymology.  The problem is that
> "spider" isn't an Italian word (at this moment, I can't remember the name
> of the arachnid in Italian (only the Spanish name will come), but it
> doesn't matter).  The question is, if the name refers to the resemblance of
> these open carriages to an arachnid, then why didn't those Italian
> coachbuilders use the Italian name?  And, if they chose not to use their
> native language, why did they choose an English word--if it is indeed from
> the English?
> 
> Dana Loomis

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