Buy with your head, drive with your heart: Alfa Romeo 4C Coupe

Seduced by a sexy Italian

There is double wishbone suspension at the front and what Alfa Romeo calls “evolved MacPherson” at the rear. Combined with the incredibly rigid chassis, the 4C is a master of effortless direction changes. Oh, I’ll just go around those double roundabouts again to make sure. If you get just-one-more-game hooked playing Gran Turismo, this is the car for you.

The Alfa Romeo 4C caused a stir at Brooklands Museum

The six-speed dual clutch transmission is quick. Paddles mounted to turn with the wheel mean you can change mid-turn and there is a muted blip as you change down. There are three modes: dynamic, normal and all-weather. The colour of the dash changes to reflect this, and in dynamic it will show boots and oil temperature.

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The Elise vibe comes from the “adding lightness” ride. It’s jarring and rattly. Thin doors and windows mean that I often thought that the door was ajar or the window open when it was not. There are mats instead of carpets, which are all the better for seeing the carbon crosshatch. This is am extremely rigid, light car. The seats are excellent, thin, supportive and comfortable.

What’s strange about the 4C is that it’s from one of the biggest car manufacturers in the world and yet feels like it’s from a low volume company. The dashboard is basic and the infotainment third party. The review car had a Parrot unit which doesn’t offer DAB, and in all respects is pretty rubbish. You can get access to Google Maps through a paired phone but no navigation, and there is no integration between the radio and the screen in the binnacle.

Alfa offer an Alpine option and all the new Spiders will have that as standard. Without having seen the Alpine head unit, and despite the fact that the Alpine units in the Lotus Evora have been panned, I can say that it’ll be better than the Parrot.

There is an inconsistency between the buttons on the dash. While the air conditioning lights (note not climate control) an LED next to the button the heated rear window indication is in the binnacle. This is much more like a KTM, Atom or above anything else an Elise. I think mechanical needles rather than a screen would have been much more appropriate. Speed is always shown as a number – there is no needle option – with a curved histogram for revs. This flashes yellow at full revs.

I particularly took against the choice of typeface for the numbers, the kerning on the “1” being dreadful, but then I’m too much of a font geek. There are no door pockets and the glovebox is replaced by a pocket so small it might house one glove but definitely not a full pair.