TTAC AMA: I Own An Alfa Romeo 4C

by Derek Kreindler

Published: November 25th, 2014

This week, TTAC reader vaujot from Frankfurt am Main chimes in.

To start, you may wonder why I bought this car.

Two reasons:

Firstly, I am an Alfista. I have memories of sitting in my uncle’s Giulia sedan as a five-year old and the unusual smell of leather interior (he eventually gave up on Alfas, they’re not well suited for Swiss winters). Since eight years, I own a 1962 Giulia Spider and through this have made the acquittance of nice and interesting fellow Alfa owners. I think it is great that they again make a car that you can drive to a meeting of Porsche owners and get compliments.

Secondly, the car is special. I see Porsches around where I live all the time. Some of my neighbors don’t even bother to keep them in a garage, parking on the street instead. In contrast, I have only once met another Alfa 4C owner and that happened after making an appointment via the 4C-forum. We met at the Nürburgring.

Alfa treats the car and its buyers as special, too. When you take delivery, you get a box containing an owners card, a key ring, a memory stick (the long users manual is stored, there) and a leather-bound folder including among other things a few photos that according to the salesman show the making of your very car.

In Europe, the 4C is sold as a low-volume model. They may only sell 1000 cars a year and it is exempted from certain regulations (I think pedestrian impact, side airbags and, of course, noise – the car is embarrassingly loud in town). Each car gets its own numbered certificate of conformity and mine is number 604 out of 1000 for this year.

Looking forward to your questions.

#AlfaRomeo #AlfaRomeo4c #Ama #TtacAma

Derek Kreindler

More by Derek Kreindler

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4 of 78 comments

Akatsuki on Nov 27, 2014

I really would like to see head-on comparison to the Lotus Elise. The Boxster is civilized compared to this one, so the Elise would seem to be natural competition.

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- Vaujot on Nov 27, 2014
  
  I have never driven or ridden an Elise. I only once tried to get into one. That was probably 15 years ago. As far as I remember, the Elise is even harder to get in and out than the 4C. Considering I am 15 years older now, I'd say its considerably harder.
  
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Svan on Dec 03, 2014

I think it was Clarkson who said that in the future, all cars will be built like this. Agree? Can you see any of the technologies in the 4C trickling down?

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- Chan on Dec 04, 2014
  
  The supply chain would need to evolve to support these new materials. The disposal of these cars will present environmental and economic challenges. How developed is CFRP recycling? It would be interesting to investigate chemically separating CF into its raw materials for re-use.
  
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