FREEWHEELING FUN
FIRST DRIVE: 2015 ALFA ROMEO 4C SPIDER,
• Two hundred and thirty-seven horsepower does not sound like a lot. Your neighbour’s Odyssey rivals that. You don’t lie awake at night dreaming about 237 horsepower. Nor is this the kind of power that will land you on the shoulder of the highway with an unhappy RCMP officer at the window.
Unless that power resides in an Alfa Romeo.
Then, and only then, will this otherwise-unremarkable number become something far holier than the sum of its parts. Then, as if by some Italian wizardry, the combination of lightweight materials and the absence of a roof culminate in a state of automotive revelry rivalled by few cars today. Then is when you realize something extraordinary has happened in Modena.
Not since freewheeling downhill in my motorless gokart when I was seven has freedom from the constraints of gravity felt so good. The 2015 Alfa Romeo 4C Spider, fashioned from the 4C coupe, takes the same fight against gravity and applies it to the open-top car: every aspect of the Spider was designed and executed, like the coupe, with the philosophy that it must not add weight. Sheet moulded composite body panels replace steel. There is but a single wiper. Gauges were overruled in favour of a clear, seven-inch digital instrument panel. The fabric top, which can be folded away like a jacket and stowed in the small 3.7-cubic-foot cargo hold, weighs a mere 6.5 kilograms.
There is still no power steering; the components only add weight. And while the steering takes some getting used to — “armstrong” at the low end but nicely weighted underway and glorious through high speed corners — the sensation is almost surreal because the feedback is both immense and immediate.
It can be hard to keep the car in a straight line at times because the wheels want to follow the road. For serious drivers, the response is divine. Every nuance of the front wheels is right at the fingertips.
So, too, do the brakes keep talking. With aluminum pedals hinged from the floor, pedal travel is short, much like a race car. They might require a good firm push but, boy, do they bite hard. Pushing the pedal harder only makes the 4C Spider stop sooner — up to 1.25g of deceleration is possible. Fade is not in this car’s vocabulary. And the iron rotors, backed by four-piston Brembo calipers up front, don’t have to work so hard because they’re not reining in multi-tonnes of weight: the Spider weighs just 1,128 kilograms — only 10 kg more than the 4C coupe.
The same work ethic applies to the 1.7-litre, directinjection turbo engine. That 237 horsepower won’t trigger a cold sweat by itself, but with 258 pound-feet of torque available as early as 1,700 rpm, the Spider pulls fiercely off the line, able to reach 98 km/h in 4.1 seconds. Through the first four gears of the sixspeed twin-clutch automatic, the engine feels larger than its displacement. Activated by paddle shifters, gear changes are quick and clean in manual mode, almost unnoticeable in automatic. The hissing of the spooling turbo joins the already-raw exhaust note to deliver a ride aimed more at competition than commuting. It sounds and feels glorious.
And it begs for more. Just north of 170 km/h, on its way to a top speed of 258 km/h — with the top on or off — the 4C remains planted and poised. The wind gets loud at this speed, of course, but there’s nothing to make the driver feel uneasy. Speed simply comes naturally to the 4C, more at the low end than top, but it will outrun a Porsche Boxster. And because the engine won’t overwhelm the car, and the brakes, steering and chassis all work in concert, there’s a sweet balance to be found driving the 4C Spider, a symmetry of handling and control and power that makes the two-seater feel more like a dancer than some mean old boxer. Even the wind turbulence inside the cabin at speed is well controlled.
Again, it comes back to the 4C Spider’s limited heft and unique top. The carbon-fibre monocoque tub — hand-laid piece by piece so the grain all falls the same way — didn’t have to be modified from the 4C coupe to accommodate the shift from coupe to cabrio. The A-pillars and windshield frame were changed, but instead of just reinforcing the same aluminum used in the coupe, the Spider got carbon fibre here as well, even though it cost more to build.
Not only does the carbon fibre look positively brilliant, it truly has made the Spider stiff. Seeing it exposed around the glass, or opening the door and seeing the standard stitched leather interior married to the polished carbon fibre, makes the Spider seem like it should cost the sum of a small Ferrari. Instead, the Spider starts at $76,495 in Canada.
That craftsmanship also means each 4C takes six weeks to build, and no more than 2,500 can be assembled each year, about a third of those coming to North America. Many of those will be optioned with a new, centre-exit, dual-mode titanium exhaust system developed by Akrapovic. In Race or Dynamic modes, the exhaust bypasses the muffler completely. Some buyers will choose a carbon fibre roof to go with the soft top, which unfastens simply with four levers and two plugs. But all will have to be satisfied with an Alpine stereo that seems out of place for such an elegant car and seats that could use more support around the thigh area.
Inspired by the Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale, the 4C Spider has lost nothing in attractiveness in the metamorphosis from coupe, and yet it has maintained every bit of its performance. The most noticeable difference in the Spider is, of course, the targa-like top but also a vented engine cover instead of a (heavier) glass cover revealing the engine.
Think of the Spider as simply more sunshine to go with your Alfa. No, this is definitely not a car for everyone. But for every driver who wants one, it’s everything they could want from a topless, mid-engine sports car.
The two-seater feels more like a dancer than some mean old boxer