It’s an old motor show trick – nothing new to stick on the stand? Then paint last year’s concept car a different colour. Okay, so the Alfa 4C first appeared at Geneva earlier
year, but the point still stands: this is the same car. Except it’s now finished in ‘fluid metal’. Which, to you and me, means instead of that funny fuzzy red it’s now silver.
Whatever’s happened in the spray booth, the 4C remains an exciting proposition – even if not all of you are exactly bubbling with praise for the way it looks. A technological showcase and smaller sibling to the sold-out 8C Competizione, Alfa continues to insist that it is going to build it, and that the compact two-seater weighs only ‘around 850kg’.
Given the lump mounted amidships is a version of the 1750 TBi turbo from the Giulietta Cloverleaf and is described as ‘topping’ 200hp, we don’t have to tell you the 4C will be pretty rapid.
In fact Alfa says the weight to power ratio (its words, not ours) is less than 4kg per hp – meaning, if our rudimentary maths is anything to go by, a power output closer to 215hp.
There’s engineering porn aplenty, either way, as the 4C borrows heavily from the technical achievements of its 8C big brother. Carbon and aluminium feature extensively.
That it also uses Alfa’s mildly maligned TCT twin-clutch transmission to transfer that power to the rear wheels is perhaps less reason to celebrate, but here’s hoping the DNA dynamic control selector will actually be of some use in this instance.
Real thing by Geneva 2012, puh-lease.