The fiery and frenetic Alfa Romeo 4C takes on the cool and
collected Porsche Cayman.
With a rigid, carbon-fiber tub in the best Ferrari
tradition, the Alfa Romeo 4C’s trump card is a waiflike curb weight of roughly
2,300 pounds. But there is much more to Alfa’s new mid-engine entry, like
neck-snapping Brembo brakes, ultrasticky Pirelli PZero rubber, and unassisted
and unfiltered steering. Power is courtesy of a 237-hp, 1742-cc turbocharged
four-cylinder engine that tattoos your eardrums with lust and desire. The
banzai Italian, limited to 3,500 units a year, can even outsprint the much more
ex-pensive Porsche 911 Carrera to 62 mph.
The 4C fuses a
lightweight physique and heavyweight performance to create a very special
sports car experience
Has the oft-cited technology transfer from Ferrari and
Maserati to Alfa Romeo yielded a winner at last? Is the 4C the brand’s promised
comeback car, the much-needed halo model capable of putting Alfa Romeo back on
the map, both in the United States and in the brand’s existing markets? Or is
it little more than Italy’s belated answer to the Lotus Elise, a minimalist
tool that excels only during memorable early-morning blasts? To find out, we
paired the rowdy red rascal with the much more formal Porsche Cayman. The
outcome of the two-day trial could not have been more eye-opening.
While the Porsche is a comfortable and convenient sports car
for grown-ups, the Alfa is both fascinating and flawed. It addresses the
hooligan inside, constantly pushing its own limits and those of the driver. The
4C fuses a lightweight physique and heavyweight performance to create a very
special sports car experience.
The Porsche is a
comfortable and convenient sports car for grown-ups
As a marque, Alfa Romeo is currently on a drip feed. The
Fiat-owned brand fields a two-model lineup in its home market: the slow-selling
MiTo subcompact, which missed the hearts of most Alfisti by a substantial
margin, and the Giulietta, which turned out to be a stylish but otherwise
inferior Volkswagen Golf competitor. The 8C Competizione, released six years
ago, was an overpriced and short-lived glimmer of hope, but it did plant the
seed for the 4C, which was conceived as a more affordable but in many ways even
more extreme brand-shaper. The uncompromising mid-engine two-seater is
skin-over-bones light and focuses primarily on performance and handling.
Exciting to drive and yet surprisingly efficient, it scores a ten out of ten
for head-turning style, and yet it won’t deplete your bank account like all
those big-name super-cars that are essentially built to the same format. Did
Alfa achieve the squaring of the circle, or is the 4C a pretty phony that will
fall apart in the real world?
The Alfa’s
carbon-fiber tub is plainly visible in the minimalist cabin
We started day one on the Alfa Romeo test track in Balocco –
in the Porsche, which is supersweet, superstable, and super-balanced. Even with
all the chips switched of, the Cayman is a master of creaminess. The steering
is smooth and progressive, the light-footed handling is easily modulated, the
drivetrain performs in a flow, the brakes do their job with communicative
enthusiasm. There are no rough edges, no abrupt transitions, no nasty
surprises. You could (but shouldn’t) accept an incoming phone call while
sliding through the esses, type in a destination while maxing out the boxer six
on the long straight, contemplate the dinner menu on the approach to pit lane.
Does that make it boring, predictable, two-dimensional, and too perfect for its
own good?
The person stepping out of the 4C surely will tell a
different story. He or she might be a bit shaken, breathing heavily, fingers
trembling, drops of sweat popping up on the forehead. But on the track the Alfa
driver will have smiled a bit more broadly than the person at the wheel of the
Porsche and per-haps have a deeper, more intense glow about them. Could it be
that the Italians are onto something truly exceptional? Can the 4C beat the
Cayman at its own game?
