NEWS
Alfa Romeo 4C one for the purists?
If Alfa Romeo is to offer cheer to its long-suffering fans, this is the car that needs to do itThere has been a disconnect between what the Alfa Romeo badge meant to some people and what has been delivered in the cars wearing it, for the past three decades.
Verve, spirit, character, crisp handling, sweet engines, snappy gearboxes and a feeling of light, sporty cohesion that shed years and worries every time you drove it to the shops, much less on a mountain road. Combine all of that and you have what a series of Alfas has failed to deliver. The last GT was awful, the Giulietta is nice enough but not special, the MiTo is a (moderately) pumped up Fiat Punto and feels like it, the 159 was at least 200kg too heavy, the 156 had the looks but little else and the last two Spiders have been fat exercises in nose-heavy torque-steer management.
In the same period, Mazda has built a small rear-drive roadster on the principles of Alfa’s 1950s and ‘60s heyday, BMW has gone from a German bit player to cement a reputation by doing what Alfa forgot how to do and even cars like the Honda Accord Euro and the Nissan 350/370Z had more Alfa “spirit” than anything you could buy from the Italians.
This car, then, the 4C, may be Alfa’s last chance at recovering its glory days, rewarding the faithful and converting the unbelievers.
The 4C’s story is one that begins with the 8C. Effectively a short wheelbase Maserati GranTurismo with a carbon-fibre bodyshell, the 8C delivered passion in spades, had an engine note that could make a jellyfish hard enough to cut diamonds and it put a smile on everybody’s face; driver, passenger, café lurker, pedestrian, old woman, young child, the lot.
And so Alfa’s head honchos embarked on the 4C program. Built around a carbon-fibre tub originally done by Italian racing specialists Dallara, the multi-eyed, mid-engined baby sports car is all about brains, not brawn, and finesse, not fury. Think small and pointy, not big and blunt.
It has eschewed big engines with high horsepower, instead delivering 180kW and 350Nm from its turbo-charged, direct-injection, in-line four cylinder. It’s only a 1.8-litre unit, plucked from the MiTo and Giulietta and revised for weight, performance and response. Eighty percent of its torque peak will arrive from 1700rpm, while the whole whack hits at 3500rpm, while the power peak arrives at 6000rpm.
It uses a slight variation on Alfa’s existing dry dual clutch transmission, with six speeds. It’s a familiar gearbox found in other Alfas, but it has been flipped around for mid-engined work and here mated to an open rear diff with an “electronic” locking setup (so expect some after-market mechanical LSDs to invade hard-core 4Cs).
And it’s light. At 895kg, it has been stripped of everything not deemed necessary to help the 4C flit from corner to corner with all the finesse of a hummingbird dancing around a wattle tree – and that’s why it’s less than four metres long.
If you’re thinking that it doesn’t have enough grunt to be credible, its powertrain and chassis package is enough to push the little 4C to 100km/h in 4.5 seconds and then on to a top speed of between 250km/h and 260km/h. It’s demonstrably not a highway blaster and Alfa Romeo doesn’t have a lot of patience for anybody who suggests it ought to be.
“Our goal was to offer the best performance and we obtain that with weight to power ratio so we tried to save weight without compromising the handling performance,” Alfa Romeo Development boss, Domenico Bagnosco, told Motoring.com.au.
“For this kind of car, we want to transfer the pure spirit of Alfa Romeo. I do not think people will use this car for the autostrade. It’s for the winding roads.”
That’s why it doesn’t get power steering. That’s why it gets carbon-fibre seat shells that don’t bend. That’s why there are no armrests. That’s why there’s a cupholder. Oh, right. This is the car built to take Alfa back to the U.S.? Of course there’s a cupholder, but don’t try to put a cup in it.
Yet for a car designed from the ground up to handle, it’s carrying some interesting suspension architecture. The back end is particularly out there, with a Chapman strut setup sitting around 250mm inboard of the wheels, then an extra link to control the flexing. The front end is nearly conventional, with a multi-link arrangement and a steering rack sitting above the axle line. That wouldn’t be so odd, except that there’s no power steering, which must lead to an initial understeer moment.
“Our goal was to offer the best performance and we obtain that with weight-to-power ratio, so we tried to save weight without compromising the handling performance,” Mr Bagnosco argued.
“We could do something more complex or conventional, but it adds weight and at the end, the goal of the suspension is only to maintain the four wheels in the correct direction.
“Remember, too, that the cost is part of the performance.”
Attached to all that suspension architecture, which bolts directly to aluminium subframes fastened to the monocoque, the 4C uses 17-inch front wheels and tyres and 18-inch versions at the rear to help Alfa tune its chassis with the rubber.
This launch edition gets a little more, using custom-made 205/40 ZR18 Pirelli PZeros on the front and 235/35 ZR19s on the back. It ends up with 60 percent of it weight over the rear axle.
Alfa has put a four-piston Brembo brake caliper up front clamping down on a ventilated steel brake disc and, Mr Bagnosco insists, it should be able to happily spend the day on a race track.
Tying all of its mechanical components together is Alfa’s DNA system, containing Dynamic, Normal and All-Weather programs to tune the throttle map, exhaust note, skid control and gearshift software. It also adds a Race mode, which pushes everything even deeper into the performance curve than Dynamic and includes a launch-control setup.
Besides planning to be a revival of Alfa’s 1960s spirit, this is Alfa’s first true “World” car in decades, introducing its designers and engineers to the joys of global safety regulations (the engine slid comfortably beneath all existing emissions regs).
It carries a minimalist theme inside, though its wide, clean dashboard accentuates a width to the cabin that the numbers suggest the 4C shouldn’t have.
There’s a boot capable of taking a carry-on trolley bag, while exterior design chief Alessandro Maccolini insists that despite its looks, its cabin is big enough to comfortably seat 95 percent of people. And he’s 192cm tall.
It looks remarkably like the 4C concept car from the 2011 Geneva Motor Show, but it’s nothing like it, really.
“The challenge was how to change the general structure of the car and the design but maintaining the same style,” Mr Maccolini said.
“Every millimetre is different and every angle and radius is different but, you know, it looks the same.
“In reality, the 4C is the unique mixture where we start with the concept and jump directly into the production car with no hesitation. This car is Alfa Romeo, distilled. The philosophy is very Alfa Romeo. To do it and express it in a car like this is not easy, though.”
Evidently not, because it has taken Alfa Romeo decades…
Alfa Romeo 4C specifications
| Body | Two-seat, transverse mid-engined coupe |
| Layout | Rear-drive |
| Engine | 1.8-litre, direct injection, turbo-charged four-cylinder |
| Power | 180kW |
| Torque | 350Nm |
| Transmission | Six-speed TCT dual-clutch |
| Weight | 895kg |
| 0-100km/h | 4.5 seconds |
| Top speed | 250km/h+ |
| Brakes | Four-piston fixed Brembo calipers (front), single-piston calipers (rear) |
| Tyres | 205/40 ZR18 Pirelli PZero (front), 235/35 ZR19 (rear) |
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Written byMichael Taylor
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If the price does not contain the notation that it is "Drive Away", the price may not include additional costs, such as stamp duty and other government charges.
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