Alfa Romeo 4C: Misunderstood Genius Review

In a world of compromise and mediocrity, genius is often misunderstand. The Alfa Romeo 4c polarizes, the reality clashing with reality in a way that nothing but genius can explain.



There is no power assisted steering. This in 2016. Yet because the 4c is mid engined, there is no engine weight over the front axle. What is left is pure driving feedback, a lovers pillow talk between the front wheels and contact patch whispered through the steering wheel and hands to the driver's cerebral cortex. Every pebble, every strain of the tire rubber, every undulation of the bed sheets that are the road...

The ride is rough if the road is anything but glass smooth, but the purity of this is what appeals to me - when the world is glass smooth, I want to know. But when the world is unfair and uneven, I want to know that too... The 4c is darty, twitchy, some might say loose. To me it feels alive, a ride to be respected, to be learned, to be tamed. No, wait, never tamed...lovingly accepted for what it is. This Alfa, like so many before it, is draped in a body that is pure sex. It is not perfectly proportioned nor even beautiful from every angle, but taken in totality it is one of those objects that make passersby do a double take, car guys and pistonheads throw a thumbs up, and total strangers come seeking you out after you park just to tell you how much they love the car. Very few mechanical objects have a personality, a soul. The Alfa 4c does. And maybe because of this, it is misunderstood by most. C'est la vie.

Ps: many ask me how the 4c compares to the comparable Lotus. My very personal answer is - if I were racing or doing time attacks where every millisecond counts, I'd bring the Lotus, do my thing, go home, park it and go about my life. In the Alfa, I'd take it out for a brisk run, come home, open the garage, then turn it around and go drive some more. I suspect that, in the hands of most, the Lotus would be "faster" but in the right hands, someone who knows and understands the 4c as well as the Lotus, the 4c might be faster, just as the rear engined Porsche 911 can be fastest, in the right hands with the right technique. But a disaster waiting to happen in the hands of the uninitiated.