ARACHNOPHOBIA CURED! New Mitsu Spyder has our Spydey sense a tingling.(News)

Byline: MARK VAUGHN

We don't have a whole lot of information on the encounter, outside of the six lines of 400-year-old poetry, but we know Little Miss Muffet was frightened away when "along came a spider.'' We can't fault her for that, but we suspect, had she encountered instead the 2007 Mitsubishi Eclipse Spyder, she would not have fled, but may have leapt-curds, whey and all-into the front "racing-inspired'' bucket seat, admired the Spyder's flowing lines and demanded Humpty Dumpty buy one for her.

The new car is priced as low as $25,389, after all. Little Miss would want it in fire-engine red, with matching two-tone interior, windblocker, and central cupholders to firmly grasp both curds and whey.

Immediately boyfriend Humpty Dumpty, who long since changed his stage name to Shock G and went on to fame with the hip-hop hit "The Humpty Hump,'' would notice the standard kickin' 650-watt max (350 continuous), nine-speaker Rockford Fosgate audio system. "Imagine that, 650 watts standard,'' he would say, listening to his sound laid down by The Underground in perfect clarity, helped by that monster forward-facing subwoofer bolted between the rear seats.

Those two traits-style and stereo-could be what the average Spyder buyer finds most important. In both arenas the new drop-top Eclipse is a hit. Beyond that, it's also not bad. For instance, the 55 percent increase in torsional rigidity compared to the previous Spyder allows both larger wheels and a stiffer suspension.

The last Spyder needed an extra inch of tire sidewall and an extra 10 mm of suspension travel to absorb bumps and lessen the chassis torque. Because the 2007 model's stiffness allows the suspension to do its job more precisely, the car now comes standard with 17-inch wheels with 225/50R tires (18-inch wheels with 235/45 rubber are optional) replacing the old model's 16s.

There are stiffer antiroll bars front and rear, stiffer springs and shocks, too. The front end is held off the ground by MacPherson struts attached to a reinforced steel subframe, while the rear has five links and a coil spring connected to another stiff subframe.