STEVE HOLE tells the story of Graham Smith’s Huntsman Spyder Alfa Romeo
Electronics engineer Graham Smith was born in Victoria, Australia in 1947 and graduated at the University of Ballarat in Mount Helen, Victoria in 1962.
He emigrated to the UK in 1970 and worked as an installer of audio systems, specialising in luxury cars. He also built his own design of radio controlled cars fitted with internal combustion engines. He fancied building a kitcar but couldn’t find what he wanted so, like so many others have done over the years, he built his own ‘Special’ that he called the Huntsman, named after the fastest spider in the world, which is also pretty scary too and comes from Australia.
I am sure that a Huntsman Spider bite Peter Parker in the first Spiderman [italics] film!
Graham underpinned his car with square tube steel spaceframe chassis with the front suspension Triumph Herald and an elaborate Royale F3 car rear suspension, complete with double wishbones all-round and Bilstein dampers.
He started the build in 1985, with the car completed in 1988. A mid-mounted 1490cc Alfa Romeo engine from an Alfasud Sprint Veloce that Graham bolted a Sprintex supercharger to. This raised power to about 175bhp.
A swoopy body from GRP was produced, which to these eyes looks sexier now thank it did in 1988. It was certainly a lightweight at just 632kg. It was registered as a Huntsman Spyder Alfa Romeo on the V5C.
The newly founded Tiger Racing, run by Jim Dudley who was excited by the car and intended to launch it as a kit alongside his Super Six and Cub models, although they took up all of his time and nothing came of the Huntsman.
he offered the project for sale in 1998 although withdrew until it was finally offered at a Bonhams auction in 2017 when the whole project was bought by Italian car collector Eugenio Ercoli for €16,000.
OMG! Huntsman SPYDER was considerably less scary than a Huntsman SPIDER!