It is difficult to remember what sports cars used to feel like before the machines took over and computing ruined everything for actual driving enthusiasts. You know, when steering used to communicate with your fingers and information would flood into your tightly clenched buttocks during a spirited drive. Alas, even the most sporting of modern cars mollycoddle their drivers. We have become numb but every now and again, a new sports car comes along that reminds us what an absolute joy fast driving can be.
And right now, a small, perfectly formed peach of an Italian sits at the top of the class for 2014 – at least when it comes to delivering thrills to drivers, passengers and onlookers alike. Alfa Romeo has finally made good on decades of broken promises with the achingly pretty little 4C.
With a construction specification that would look familiar to owners of McLarens and Lamborghini Aventadors, this Alfa’s physical make-up is astonishingly futuristic. Carbon fibre tub chassis with front and rear alloy subframes and a mid-mounted, all-aluminium engine? This is exotic stuff, normally the preserve of supercars costing many times the 4C’s ticket price but it’s all present and correct, much to the surprise of the doubters who dismissed its makers’ claims as pure fantasy.
The processes involved in building the 4C are not just about bragging rights. Being made from carbon fibre means the car’s incredibly tough but also light. In fact the 4C weighs just 895kg (or about the same as a Fiat 500) and that means it can outperform many more powerful but weightier machines. That lightness is what makes the Alfa feel totally alive in your hands. Point it down the right road and unleash its 240-horsepower four-cylinder engine and it’s like a ballet dancer, pirouetting across the stage at the Royal Opera House.
Hang on a minute. Did I say four-cylinder engine? When even the lowliest Porsche comes with a fifty per cent cylinder advantage, is similarly priced and handles as deftly as the standard-setting Cayman, isn’t the 4C immediately outranked? Well, perhaps it’s time to realign our thinking, because this little car can hit 100km/h from rest in four and a half seconds and (for cars with less than 250hp), recently lapped Germany’s Nürburgring Nordschleife track in a record-breaking eight minutes and four seconds. That’s seriously impressive, especially as it was set in a production standard car with a journalist at the wheel.
But while the 4C can run rings around the established sports car hierarchy, Alfa Romeo’s obsessive weight saving has come at a price. Anything that wasn’t deemed essential has been junked to keep the car sprightly. Even the carpets. The Spartan cabin is quite tight but when the wheelbase is just a 2,380mm wheelbase – making it shorter than a Toyota Yaris - you can hardly expect it to feel roomy.
If you must have electrically adjustable seats then look elsewhere. In this car, you need to use an Allen key to adjust them so you’d best plan those journeys carefully and in advance. Either that or have the driver’s seat sorted and never let anyone else drive your car. There’s barely enough space for a passenger and anyway, whoever rides along had better forget about bringing much with them. There’s no room. So make sure your pockets are sizeable.
The weight-saving has also resulted in cheaper feeling materials being used to cover interior surfaces and extremely limited soundproofing. Even the hideous steering wheel is a two-spoke affair instead of three to keep the kilo count as low as possible and where you’d normally expect high quality leather, standard seats are upholstered in recycled plastic material. Your choice? Put up with it or put up more money – simple, really.
You might well be asking yourself why a car like this appeal would to anyone other than hardcore track junkies or masochists. After all, the 4C’s little more than a stripped-down racing car, it has a puny 1.75-litre four-pot putting down (relatively) low power through skinny tyres and there isn’t even room for your sandwiches when you take it out for a drive. That though, is to miss the point because driving this car is never a chore. On the contrary, this is a car that begs and pleads to be driven hard and fast. It rewards like few others could ever hope to and, well, just look at it.
Granted, the headlamps are hideous but they’d surely be an easy aftermarket fix. As for the rest, it’s pure design poetry. The 4C is more desirable, at least on an emotional level, than any Porsche ever could be. Its engine might be small but it makes an intoxicating sound and the paddle shift, twin-clutch sequential transmission actively encourages you to take control. Its steering is non-assisted and is heavy at parking speeds but it comes alive when you’re really on the move. Because you feel absolutely everything through the palms of your hands, the car becomes an extension of your body.
Roundabouts are transformed into entertainment centres. You can attack them at greater speeds than your passenger might feel comfortable with, knowing that the 4C’s tenacious grip can be trusted. This allows you to exploit every last drop of performance, every nuance of construction. Yes, it does break traction if you push it hard enough but even as it does so, it feels playful and benign. This is not a car that suggests it wants to kill you at the first sight of a hedgerow.
Will this be the car that saves the ailing Alfa Romeo from disappearing altogether? The company’s output has been weak for decades and, as good as the 4C may be, production numbers of 3,500 units a year won’t make much difference to profit and loss accounts. What the 4C does do though, is prove that the company still has what it takes to be the best at something. Raw, uncompromising, edgy, beautiful and gloriously impractical, the 4C is a toy, not a mode of transport. And it’s utterly brilliant.
