Alfa Romeo 4C is no more
Discussion
cerb4.5lee said:
blueg33 said:
Britains best drivers car test and no Lotus in the line up! - how stupid
I think that they usually use brand new cars that have come out over that year. I'm guessing Lotus didn't bring anything to the market that year. Lotus do usually do well in this test.
That had an Evora 400 there the year after
cerb4.5lee said:
s m said:
Court_S said:
They were pretty much universally panned though by the press.
Sutcliffe didn’t dislike it as much as some 
As I said earlier it is rare for a car to get hammered by everyone, and the 4C is certainly a pup. A real shame because on paper its lightweight should have made it a world beater.
In theory I could buy a new Alpine, but then I’d be having to spend £50k+ to replace a car that cost me £44k (brand new, fully optioned) for no difference in performance or economy and Id lose the USP of an exposed CF chassis. It’s a non starter of an idea. I could go Lotus but unless you are Kam or Loon, you are not doing 50,000 miles in 2 yrs in an Exige!!!
I’d lose my gorgeous seats - by far the best thing about any half decent Italian car and gain at best the slimworld buckets in an Alpine or the Germanic car in something Porsche-ish.
No doubt somebody will mention the 718 Box/Cox, but I drove the GTS 718 a cpl of yrs ago with my wife, walked back into Parkers threw the keys in the reception desk and said it was the worst Pork product we’ve ever driven.
The 4C is absolutely perfect at what it does and is. It’s s
t at everything else. It doesn’t pretend otherwise. My wife loathes it. But the she also loathed my Integrale and got claustrophobic in the Sagaris...DaveCWK said:
I don't think i've ever seen one out in the wild either.
Looks like you can get an early one for £35k or so - what was the original list price?
If all it needs is some aftermarket suspension fettling to sort it out they still look a good buy to me for a carbon tub 2 seater.
If I recall they were about £70k. Looks like you can get an early one for £35k or so - what was the original list price?
If all it needs is some aftermarket suspension fettling to sort it out they still look a good buy to me for a carbon tub 2 seater.
Which immediately raises expectations.
kambites said:
I thought they were more like £50k when they came out? I vaguely remember it undercutting the contemporary Exige.
I’m sure someone can be bothered to look it up but I remember they were disappointingly expensive.If they’d kept a lid on the cost, by skipping the carbon perhaps, it would have been forgiven a lot of the shortcomings reviewers found with it.
swisstoni said:
kambites said:
I thought they were more like £50k when they came out? I vaguely remember it undercutting the contemporary Exige.
I’m sure someone can be bothered to look it up but I remember they were disappointingly expensive.If they’d kept a lid on the cost, by skipping the carbon perhaps, it would have been forgiven a lot of the shortcomings reviewers found with it.
https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/alfa-romeo/4c...
They could have made it a lot more cheap and ordinary by skipping the carbon. Not sure that's where they were trying to take the brand at the time.
Have had mine since summer last year. As you can tell by my username I also have a Porsche 993, which I've had for 14 years now and is my main reference.
4C is in another planet not only in pure performance but also in handling. I have huge respect for all these magazine guys but I can't see why they did not like it; granted the steering is super direct and it understeers quite a bit... just like a big go kart but that is what I would expect for a car like this. Sometimes I just jump from it straigth to the Porsche and it feels like going to Mercedes or something.
Looks wise I think nothing comes close to a 993 but the 4C gets pretty close.
I love it.
4C is in another planet not only in pure performance but also in handling. I have huge respect for all these magazine guys but I can't see why they did not like it; granted the steering is super direct and it understeers quite a bit... just like a big go kart but that is what I would expect for a car like this. Sometimes I just jump from it straigth to the Porsche and it feels like going to Mercedes or something.
Looks wise I think nothing comes close to a 993 but the 4C gets pretty close.
I love it.
Edited by 993-4C on Friday 8th November 15:31
I had a leased 4C Spider, which I had re-mapped and fitted with the Alfaworkshop geo mods. It was absolutely epic. It looked awesome, sounded awesome and went like a greased whippet. You really did have to re-calibrate your reference points when overtaking. It did occasionally get unsettled when either braking hard or accelerating hard on a poor road surface - however you have to factor in the rate of the acceleration or deceleration to put it into perspective.
People really shouldn't dismiss this car until they've tried it for themselves.
People really shouldn't dismiss this car until they've tried it for themselves.
Love mine.
This guy summed everything up pretty well (subtitles).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9W3i2rRH18
Harris was also pretty positive about the 4C. He did two reviews on it, first at the launch event where he was extremely positive and then against a 981 Cayman in the UK where he commented on the tramlining but was still pretty positive about it overall.
As mentioned the geo mods helped, but what also didn't help the car were the stock Pirelli PZero tyres. Having switched mine to Goodyear Eagle F1 Supersport, the handling improved drastically.
Also, you can take this car on track completely stock, it's handle brilliantly with minimal roll, the brakes won't fade and you can do lap after lap.
This guy summed everything up pretty well (subtitles).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9W3i2rRH18
Harris was also pretty positive about the 4C. He did two reviews on it, first at the launch event where he was extremely positive and then against a 981 Cayman in the UK where he commented on the tramlining but was still pretty positive about it overall.
As mentioned the geo mods helped, but what also didn't help the car were the stock Pirelli PZero tyres. Having switched mine to Goodyear Eagle F1 Supersport, the handling improved drastically.
Also, you can take this car on track completely stock, it's handle brilliantly with minimal roll, the brakes won't fade and you can do lap after lap.
Edited by lawrywild on Friday 8th November 16:38
omniflow said:
I had a leased 4C Spider, which I had re-mapped and fitted with the Alfaworkshop geo mods. It was absolutely epic. It looked awesome, sounded awesome and went like a greased whippet. You really did have to re-calibrate your reference points when overtaking. It did occasionally get unsettled when either braking hard or accelerating hard on a poor road surface - however you have to factor in the rate of the acceleration or deceleration to put it into perspective.
People really shouldn't dismiss this car until they've tried it for themselves.
Agreed. I have driven one a fair bit and it is indeed epic. It gets to speeds easily much quicker at particular reference points on my favourite roads, as anything else I've driven (eg 450bhp 991). Yes it had the £450 front suspension castor mod, but that's all it needs for our crap roads. Initial road tests were much more favourable, but were mainly carried out on good roads in other countries. The most realistic UK test, which best illustrates the 4C's character, was done by Vikki Butler-Henderson for 5th gear. A small mod is not too bad a thing to have to do, after all, plenty of other cars have weak points. For example, I remember the 993 mainly came with not so good Monroe dampers which were pretty much knackered by 20,000, but were best changed for something decent straight away. The bolt tightening service, which Alfa said originally every 2 years, is really only needed every 12,000 miles, maybe more, and should not cost more than a main service on a BMW etc.People really shouldn't dismiss this car until they've tried it for themselves.
It's really classic Alfa to get a car 95% of the way to greatness and then hobble it with a stupid flaw, thus failing to achieve commercial success. Obviously the car expensively has the fundamentals of greatness with the light weight, MR layout and plenty of power, only to fall at the final hurdle of chassis setup. Perhaps Alfa's attitude carried over from the 8C - "they'll sell anyway, so why waste time setting up the chassis?". But for the enthusiast owner at least it's an easier flaw to rectify than, say, terminal rust or a Fiat floorpan.
They could easily have sorted the geometry, wound up the boost for another 20hp, mixed up another paint colour and a slightly different shaped spoiler, and launched an 'S' model a year later. Wouldn't have been much effort, and then all the mags would have gone back for another go and declared the 4C 'fixed' and raved about it's greatness.
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