Alfa’s 4C Spider is a kart at heart
Spider is a trackday toy that will get you to the circuit legally
ACOLLEAGUE of mine once described Alfa Romeo’s 4C as a go-kart with a roof, so when the open-topped Spider version arrived in our basement the other week I was mentally preparing myself for, er… just a kart.
Jokes aside, the 4C is somewhat more substantial than that and is brewed with some serious supercar ingredients, with a tub-like carbonfibre chassis rendering it extremely light and rigid. Given how sturdy the structure already was, Alfa’s engineers didn’t have to make too many heavy reinforcements to compensate for the lack of a roof and as a result the Spider weighs just 79kg more than its hard-top sibling.
The 4C Spider has a targa-style roof design, which means that only the top part is removable and it’s essentially just a piece of fabric with two small pillars on either end. You have to unlatch it manually and fold it up like a sleeping bag while hoping you left enough space for it in the small boot behind the rearmounted engine - which can barely swallow a few shopping bags in the first place.
But let’s be fair here, this is not a shopping car. If it had satnav and any form of autopilot, the 4C would attempt to drive itself to the nearest race track. But forget about modern gizmos, it doesn’t even have power steering and the aftermarket radio fitted to our test car looked like it was nicked from a Citi Golf. There is at least one touch of new-age flash in the fully digital instrument cluster. While nearly all modern sportscars try to double as fluffy puffy commuting cocoons, all the 4C seems to care about is saving weight to get you around the next corner a bit faster. It’s the purist of purists, inspired by hairy-chested classics like the ‘60s Alfa 33 Stradale.
There would be almost a week of urban drudgery between my taking delivery of the 4C Spider test car and getting it to a track so first let’s take a look at how it does the everyday grind.
For starters, the 4C is incredibly low, so low that when surrounded by the usual sea of SUVs on the road you almost feel like you’re sitting on a skateboard. Even getting in and out is a process on its own, thanks also to its tub structure. If you’ve ever sat in a Lotus Exige you’ll already know the drill and the general feeling of on-road refinement, or lack thereof, also applies here to a large extent.
I can’t imagine that there’s much sound-deadening material in the structure (that adds weight, remember) and as a result the 4C’s 1742cc turbopetrol engine sounds really brutal from inside, even when the roof ’s in place. You can forget about conversation or music if you have the top off at highway speeds, although putting it back on does at least make the situation tolerable.
The four-cylinder motor, also fitted to the Giulietta QV, shoves out 177kW at 6 000rpm and 350Nm from 2 200rpm and though that barely sounds hot-hatch adequate, remem- ber that we’ve saved a lot of weight here and the resulting 999kg kerb mass ensures a serious power to weight ratio. The tin-top 4C that we tested back in 2014 sprinted to 100km/h in five seconds flat and the slightly heavier Spider should theoretically only be marginally slower off the mark.
The engine is mated to a sixspeed dual-clutch autobox, which much prefers the aforementioned sprinting to ho-hum urban cruising, even with the DNA driving configurator in ‘natural’ mode. It loves to labour the engine, even for simple gaps in traffic, but thankfully there is a set of flappy paddles that allow you to micro-manage a smoother driving experience.
Then there’s that non-assisted steering, which makes parking a bit of a wrestle, although it wasn’t nearly as bad as I had expected and there is an upside in that you just get so much more sensation from the steering at higher velocities. As you’d expect, the ride is very firm and you do feel every irregularity in the road, yet it’s not quite bone-jarring and I found it reasonably tolerable on most surfaces.
The 4C also has a tendency to want to steer into every dip in the road’s surface. It’s a slight annoyance in town, but it can even border on unnerving at higher speeds on stretches of tar that are both curvy and extremely bumpy, like the road that leads to the test facilities we use.
The week of bumping and shaking seemed well worth it when the Spider arrived at Gerotek’s ride and handling track, where the 4C could finally unleash its pent-up aggression. In this setting, the 4C really is a go-kart in all the best ways possible – with virtually no body roll and superlative grip and agility. In a nutshell, it’s a truly point-and-squirt experience and its tail is not easily unstuck, although the Alfa will happily powerslide its way through when those limits are approached. VERDICT The 4C is a purpose-designed track toy that just happens to get you to the circuit legally. Getting one of these and not attending track days regularly would be a bit like buying a Suzuki Jimny and not taking it on a punishing offroad trail at least once or twice a month – you’d just be buying an expensive compromise. In the 4C Spider’s case that’s a R1 340 900 expense. Yes, a 718 Boxster gives you similar pace for a lot less and will also get you to work in comfort, but I suspect the average 4C owner already has an everyday car and just wants a dedicated toy for the circuit. In that case it makes some sense, but then you might as well skip the Spider and opt for the regular tin-top 4C.