Фиц си требал и текстот да го вметнеш, цел од збор до збор.
There was a time when “sports car” meant a car designed for sport, that is, a car whose primary, and often singular purpose was the sport of driving. Carrying groceries or kids was secondary, and the idea of integrating a purpose-built receptacle for your beverage would have been laughed at.
Over the years the sports car has evolved, or more accurately, devolved, into a comically over-engineered, overweight, luxury status symbol whose list of design goals place things like iPhone connectivity and multi-zone air conditioning systems above driving pleasure. Hence why so many of us have turned to vintage cars to get our excitement out of driving. How else are you going to feel connected with the road, the car, and the elements? Some of us still enjoy the sense of danger that comes with pushing a purely mechanical object to its limits and those of our own.
It’s in this context that regardless of where your brand loyalty lies, if you are a true driving enthusiast, you must have deep respect for FCA for taking such a risk and developing the Alfa Romeo 4C and 4C Spider -- cars whose singular purpose is pure driving pleasure.
What is it?
The 4C Spider is not designed to be a roadster, but hopes to be a true sports car with a Targa top, providing that extra sense of openness. Both the Coupe and the Spider were designed with a simple philosophy of favoring lightness and efficiency over brute force and heft to yield a great driving experience. To get an idea of how light it is, consider the fact that two 4C Spiders weigh less than one BMW M4 convertible!
This incredible lightness is made possible thanks to an all-aluminum subframe, Sheet Molded Compound for the body, and most importantly, a carbon-fiber monocoque chassis, the likes of which can only be found in a handful of supercars each costing well over $300,000. The 4C coupe starts at about $55,000. Think about that for a moment.
Propelling this feather-weight (by modern standards) go-kart is a 1,750-cc turbocharged four cylinder mid-mounted engine. For those of you who are new to the Alfa Romeo world, 1,750-cc is a magical number in Alfa history. It’s the displacement used in some of Alfa Romeo’s legendary sports cars and sport sedans of the ’60s and early ’70s, such as the 1969 Duetto or the mighty GTAm that dominated the European Touring Car Championships.
You’ll love what it doesn’t have.
Some critics have complained that the 4C lacks luxury. To me, complaining about lack of luxury in a sports car is akin to complaining that a supermodel lacks a mustache.
I love the fact that it doesn’t have a slew of useless features that compromise its sporting nature.
Does it have motorized 83-way adjustable seats with integrated A/C rendering them twice as heavy as the driver sitting on them? Nope. Instead it has lightweight manually-adjustable seats that hug you with soft Italian leather featuring beautiful contrasting stitching.
Does it pump fake exhaust noises via its speakers to fool you into thinking the engine has character? No chance. The exhaust note is pure, authentic, and flaunts the turbocharger, giving you even more reason to keep the top off and take the revs to the redline.
You certainly won’t find a giant LCD screen in the middle of the dash with a control wheel so you can send text messages and download apps. It has a no-nonsense, driver-oriented clutter-free center console angled towards the driver, allowing you to stay focused on driving.
The list of useless and often weight-adding gadgets that the 4C Spider thankfully does not have goes on: no e-brake, no power folding mirrors, no lane assist, no stop-start, you get the idea. Best of all, it does not have power-assisted steering, a “feature” that definitely has no business existing on a car this light.
Perhaps the only useless feature is the radio which I never turned on, as I quickly became addicted to the sound of the exhaust. Kidding aside, there is one feature that an enthusiast could gripe about: the lack of a manual transmission. More on this later.
