2014 Alfa Romeo 4C Gets Frosty Reception

IT DOESN'T take long to realize that Alfa has cocked up again. Already they have removed the fab 159 from market before a replacement was ready. Now they have designed a small two-seat sports car with small engine and a carbon fibre chassis, and made it heavier than a car designed ten years ago made out of metal. Did anyone in Turin bother to benchmark a Lotus Elise? It is one of those curious idiosyncracies that makes the marque personable and lovable. It also means that yet again their products are off the pace: why-oh-why is it two metres wide.

Here is how the conversation should have gone: I've done this cool sketch. It looks really wide. Yes, two metres. Lets make it narrower. OK. 


Instead, they made the sketch, then put wrap-around glass to make it look even wider, making the effect from far away something of a quasi-Stratos. But where that car (icon!) had sharp, lean lines and plenty of wedge to lend direction, the Alfa is an amorphic sprawl. From some angles it is appealingly voluptuous, from others the surfaces melt from form to feature. At the back in particular, the Alfa tries to manage its girth with a combination of fat facets, big radii and socketed lamps and, bizarrely, a satsuma under the badge. But it succeeds only in making the lines loose and the car plasticky. 

That simile holds at the front. The LED-studded lamp cluster has been done with the abandon of putting coal buttons on a snowman, the door mirrors are boxing-gloves on sticks, and the grille mesh is straight from B&Q. Ownership is about discovering the details that make a car sing, but these details are an aesthetic grunt. 

If the width is already difficult to manage aesthetically, it has also increased weight. The engine, wheels, glass are fairly fixed measures, but plainly less car means less weight, and less width increases top speed by minimising drag. Fine, you could argue that a broader track aids stability corners, but it is a limp reason when so many narrower rivals manage it just as well. I love that Alfa even bothered to create this car, especially with an MX-5-based roadster on the horizon, but the 4C lacks the obsession that would have made it spectacular.