ugly. buy a maserati.
why would you even want a car like that? there are some losers at my work that drive nice cars just to impress chicks…seems pretty pathetic to me…
I really don’t think girls are into sports cars like that. Anyway, the car is cool but a 1.7 liter engine?
Not personally a fan, but I am a huge fan of sports cars.
If I was in the market for an Alfa Romeo, I’d prefer the 8C Competizione.
Nobody would judge you for a speed ticket or two.
It’s a cool looking car but it is probably too small for me. I’m not wild about small turbocharged engines either - no low end torque. It would probably be a blast up at Lime Rock though.
Hmm. I for one am very excited about the shift in the sports car industry towards light cars that don’t need high HP to go fast. The Alfa 4C, for instance, has a weight target of about 1900 lbs. For comparison, a current generation Mazda Miata weighs about 2400 lbs. Even with “only” 230 HP, the Alfa will do 0-60 faster than a (current) Cayman S. The lack of low-end torque in turbo charged engines has also been largely addressed in recent years. A good example is the Audi 2.0T engine, which is used in basically all their small to medium cars. If you’ve ever driven a car with this engine, you’ll know what I mean. Other than the engine sound (or so some people say), the 2.0T is pretty much indistinguishable from a V6. Other makers - like BMW, are also replacing their V6s with turbo 4s. The 2012 Z4 is one example. The 4-cylinder model is as fast as (faster than?) the 6-cylinder model. However, the lower weight gives the 4-cylinder car better fuel economy and handling. Price is also important. I’d love to have a Maserati or 8C, but the fact is, my wife will divorce me if spend $200k on a sports car. $50-$60k is still kind of within reason for people who are just sort of wealthy (not hundred millionaires).
The problem is that those of us who are 6’ 2" tall don’t fit very well in these small cars. For example, that Z4. I don’t know about the 2012 Z4 but a Z4 from a couple of years ago, I simply couldn’t drive. I couldn’t fit my legs in the car. Anyway, since I don’t like to drive fast these sports cars don’t really do it for me anyway.
Fortunately, only Alfa considers the Cayman S a performance benchmark, but more importantly, you’re talking in made up figures. The car isn’t even in production yet. But I’ve ridden in similar cars such as the Lotus Elise and all I can say is the ride is terrible and the complete lack of any interior (actual metal surfaces in the Lotus) quickly gets old. Also, you’re focusing on low end performance statistics, above 60 mph weight is no longer as much of a factor in forward acceleration and horsepower takes over (as well as aerodynamics even later). You MAY see the occasional small HP car hang with a true sports car up until about 90 or so, but from there on it’s all one sided in favor of the large hp thoroughbreds. I’m not saying most people drive up in those ranges, but that is the true definition of a sports car (race inspired street car), the other things are just modified go carts with a narrow range. For about $23k, my brother bought a two year old 2003 Mustang Cobra SVT (Factory Supercharged V8, stock with same transmission as Z06 and Dodge Viper, rock solid stock rear end) and had about $4k of shop work done to it. I won’t go into the reasoning, but I could write about a full page of why that was one of the all time best value street racing platforms ever produced ($32k new). Long story short, when he got it back, it dyno’d at 580 rwhp (indicates roughly 650+ hp at the engine) and ran mid 11 seconds on stock street tires. The small engines are cool until you pull up to a light in a cute BMW, Porsche or in this case Alfo you paid 60+k for and get absolutely annihilated out of the light.
You’re ignoring the fact that in their actual “performance” M series models they’ve universally increased engine size going from an inline 6 in the M3 to a V8 and so forth to MUCH better results. Also, a smaller engine is not necessarily more fuel efficient, this is an incredible myth. The LS series V8’s used in Corvettes, Trans Ams, etc over the past 15 years averages 26 mph on the highway because due to the high torque you can comfortably drive at 2k rpm which means far fewer fuel injections into the cylinder. Once you step on the gas, equal output turbo and NA engines are typically both indistinguishable fuel hogs and turbo’d engines are typically putting significantly higher stress on the smaller engine. Not only that, because the LS series V8’s used by GM aren’t inline and aren’t DOHC and are made of aluminum alloy, they are both smaller in actual size and lighter than the inline 6’s BMW used to put in their M3’s.
At 50-60k, the vette offers the best performance hands down IMHO and according to nearly every comparison. The Targa top isn’t a bad feature either.
You’re comparing a mustang to a lotus Elise? Two entirely different cars, one is an overweight GT designed to impress similarly overweight middle Americans and the other one is a bare bones track car for the street. Drag racing is for rednecks
I respect both cars, I’m just saying the cobra was 10x more streetable and 1000x more badass in matchups on the street. If you honestly can’t see the fun in having a car that can annihilate almost anything in a quarter mile, out of a light, or from a roll, then its not worth discussing. Even the guys I know with full out weekend circuit track cars love to run their street cars out of the lights. My point is the Elise is a go cart. It doesn’t stand up against thoroughbreds on the circuit (only good for autocross and low speed handling because it dogs above 90) and can’t hang on the streets.