A sportscar for the light hearted

At the 2013 Geneva motor show Alfa Romeo revealed its small and lightweight sports car called the 4C. This then had to carry the torch of the famous Spider and GTV. Now it has finally arrived in the showrooms up here in the north.

Alfa Romeo 4C in Madreperla White

The car immediately caught the eyes and minds of the motoring world with its striking looks. The curvy and smooth lines combined with the aggressive stinger bee sort of glare is quite characteristic of the Alfa Romeo design department (Centro Stile Alfa Romeo). The 4C is mid-engined but if there would be no glass cover I don't think anyone would notice. It doesn't suffer from the short nose syndrome as other mid-engined cars.

For a small car it is extremely wide, over 2 meters wide in fact.

Why no ordinary road dweller will notice the mid mounted engine is because it is tiny. The engine is only a 1.75 litre unit lifted from the company's Giulietta hatchback. With a turbo and some other bits and bobs the power output becomes 240 HP. And in true sports car fashion all of this goes to the rear wheels. This isn't that impressive until you realize that the chassis is almost entirely made out of carbon fibre and the entire car of other composite materials and aluminium. This means the car weighs only 895 kg. With this weight - or lack of it - the 240 horsepower is sufficient enough. This sports car is build like most of the super cars build today, and the performance numbers reflect that as well. Officially the snorty 4-cylinder achieves 100 kph in 4.5 seconds but road testers have done the 0-100 sprint in 4.2 seconds. The 4C will keep on going to an impressive 260 kph.

I'm only small, but I'll bite your head off if you're not careful.

Super car numbers and super car materials in a small compact Italian sports car that also is beautiful to behold comes at a high price of over 50 000€ in Italy. Here in the north the added taxes will push the price to an eye watering 90 000€. The question now is, do you have the heart, soul and riches to own one? Because I now you want to.