From that first bit of information, we can infer that the 4C is lightweight and exotic. From the second, we can guess that it surely has a compromise or two baked in. When you get an extravagant carbon tub for only 55 grand, you should expect to sit on apple crates and start the engine with a hand crank.
The 4C actually does a pretty good job at disguising the parsimony that dictated some of its other design decisions. Its 6-speed dual-clutch gearbox, for instance, is shared with less glamorous machines from Alfa’s Fiat Chrysler parent, namely the Dodge Dart. But it works, slamming decisive upshifts and executing throttle-blip downshifts as if it’s auditioning for the Scuderia Ferrari Formula One team.
The 4C’s 1.7-liter turbocharged 4 cylinder is another shared item, appearing in Europe in Alfa’s Giulietta hatchback. Here, that front-wheel-drive engine and transmission package is nestled behind the passenger compartment in a midengine, rear-wheel-drive setup. The turbocharger runs 21.75 p.s.i. of boost, allowing the little engine to produce 237 horsepower and 258 pound-feet of peak torque.
Out of context, those aren’t staggering numbers. Hey, a base Camaro has more than 300 horsepower. But a Camaro also weighs a lot more than 2,465 pounds, which is the Alfa’s base curb weight. This thing has about as much body fat as California Chrome.
The 4C’s minimal poundage allows it to record a 0-to-60 m.p.h. time in the mid-four-second range, the company says, when using the transmission’s launch control function. There are also salutary effects on the chassis. Alfa claims that the 4C can pull more than 1.1 g on the skid pad and more than 1.25 g under braking. The Alfa may not throw you back in the seat like a Corvette, but it will give the seatbelts a workout when you’re braking into a corner.
Speaking of the seatbelts: You’ll want to buckle yours before you start the car. For reasons known only to the Italians, the 4C includes a seatbelt warning buzzer that makes your skin crawl like the synthesized cries of the electric baby Jesus on “Saturday Night Live.” I believe the United States military used noises like this to drive Manuel Noriega from his compound.
The screaming seatbelt alarm is but one of several ways that the 4C challenges its driver. There’s a square corner on the lower part of the dash that intrudes into the space where your right leg wants to rest. You can get reverse sensors but no camera, so backing up is like playing Marco Polo with the wall in the parking garage. And the steering exhibits at least two personalities, depending on where you’re driving. I’ve never encountered anything quite like it.
Because the 4C weighs so little, it doesn’t need power-assisted steering. Manual steering is revered by car geeks, because there’s no electric motor or hydraulic pump to filter out feedback from the road. It’s just the tires and a steering rack, reporting live from the scene. Run over a pebble and you’ll know whether it’s igneous or metamorphic.
That’s wonderful on smooth roads, but I first drove a 4C in Michigan, where the pavement is frost-scarred, truck-rutted and generally about as smooth as a Washington Redskins news conference. Without the dampening effect of a power assist system, the 4C’s front tires wandered and hunted, following ruts and sending impacts right up to the flat-bottom steering wheel. A plot of the 4C’s path would look like that of a 10-week-old puppy out for a walk.
But then I drove a 4C in North Carolina, where the pavement is Botox-smooth, and it was like a different car. Without the ruts and potholes, the 4C’s steering was glorious — alive, but never nervous. The roads in Italy are a lot more like the ones in North Carolina than Michigan, so I guess that’s not a surprise. But as a general rule, if you live where roadway frost heaves recall the majesty of the Himalayas, you’re going to wrestle with the 4C’s helm.
Both cars I drove were the Launch Edition model, which costs $69,695 and includes a pile of options, one of which is “racing exhaust.” There is no muffler, so the exhaust coughs, pops and burbles unlike any 4-cylinder since the Dodge Neon SRT-4 (which also had no muffler). Alfa is building only 500 Launch Editions, but the boisterous exhaust system is an option on the base model.
The exhaust, for all its auditory bravado, has some competition from the intake. Roll down the window and it sounds as though the turbocharger is trying to suck your hair into its compressor like a demented Flowbee. It’s like listening to half of a McLaren 650S, another turbocharged, midengine car with a carbon monocoque. But that one costs more than $250,000.
Yes, at the 4C’s price you could get a Corvette or a Porsche Cayman, which are more practical everyday cars. But sports car purchases are not entirely intellectual decisions, and there will be a cohort that buys the Alfa simply for the joy of picking up the floor mats and gazing at bare carbon fiber. Others will be attracted to the brand itself, largely absent in the United States for the last couple of decades, except for the rare and expensive 8C Competizione.
And hey, anyone who bought a Lotus Elise or Exige is pretty much guaranteed to look at this, the heir to the elemental sports car throne. I wonder how many of the nation’s 86 Alfa dealers will end up with Lotus trade-ins on their lots.
Alfa Romeo had plenty of false starts during its long slog back to the United States. And the hype over cars that never materialized only built up the anticipation. Now that Alfa is finally here, the payoff is a car that’s unlike anything on the market, a younger Ferrari cousin that the 458 Italia would recognize at family reunions, a sort of latter-day Dino.
It’s not perfect, but the 4C is a beautiful little Italian sports car at a price that mere mortals can contemplate. You can’t help but be glad it’s here. For Alfa Romeo and its new generation of owners, may the roads be smooth ahead.