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.

 Geneva Motor Show goodness

Now that we have dealt with the awe inspiring supercars of the Geneva Motor Show, let's start talking about the luxurious, sporty and even affordable cars from Geneva.


Let's start off with the new and hopefully improved Chevrolet Corvette Stingray or the C7 if you prefer. And yes, the Stingray name is back. In Geneva Chevy showed the convertible version of it and I have to say it looks good and possibly even better for a middle-aged man. The coupé version was revealed at the Detroit Motor Show a few months ago and it was an instant hit. Now that the roof has disappeared in the boot hasn't made it less desirable. The only issue I have with it so far is that I think it resembles a bit too much a Ferrari which is no surprise since Chevrolet has a joint venture with Fiat, who happens to own a little company called Ferrari. 

Chevrolet Corvette Stingray Convertible

Chevrolet Corvette Stingray coupé

No metal roof origami here

To cover for the luxurious part of the motor show in Geneva Rolls Royce showed up with its new Wraith. It's basically a Ghost underneath but with a coupé body on top. It also has the same 6.6 litre twin turbo V12 BMW engine as the Ghost but obviously fiddled with to give out 624 horsepower. It's a huge coupé with a massive engine which indicates that the Wraith is more built for the driver than the other modern Rolls Royce's so far. But don't by any means mistake this for a posh Bentley Continental GT.

Rolls Royce Wraith

Yes the door opens backwards

The much anticipated production ready Alfa Romeo 4C also made its debut in Geneva. It's a new small sports car from a manufacturer that should know what they're doing. The numbers at least sound promising. It has a turbocharged 1.8 litre engine putting out a respectable 240 hp. And all that goes to the back wheels. It's light too, Alfa claim it weighs less than 1000 kg which is impressive these days. So the new 4C touches all the right sports car buttons and it looks great. Is it a possible Audi TT beater?

Alfa Romeo 4C

The women were all over it, that's good

Stylish interior but hopefully not cramped