Opinion: why the infuriating Alfa Romeo 4C is still on our shopping list

In giving strength, courage and purpose to life, Marcus Aurelius’ pearls of wisdom have transcended time and space. Though today these pearls find themselves bludgeoned by an unruly, comically annoying four-cylinder Italian sports car.

Because while he might very well have said you have power over your mind – buy a Cayman! Buy a Cayman! For the love of all that’s holy, just buy a Porsche Cayman! – you absolutely do not have power to resist the allure of telephone-dial alloys and a mid-engined silhouette.

Damn it, here we go again. I want an Alfa Romeo 4C, badly.

Principally because I haven’t driven an Alfa Romeo 4C for a while and have forgotten just how badly it can drive. Long has the nightmare of trying to grapple one of these unruly maniacs down a badly surfaced B-road disappeared, replaced only by the notion that should you take the plunge, you could have what looks like a supercar on your driveway.

What a driveway that would make. In 2023’s wildly tribal design world of aggressive excess on one side and streamlined homogeneity on the other, the 4C just looks brilliant. Looked brilliant as a concept in 2011. Looked brilliant when it launched in 2013 and throughout its fraught little life. Looks brilliant as an ownership prospect now.

Because – and we realise this is pure vanity – wouldn’t it just sound good to say ‘yeah, I’ve got an Alfa’? Aurelius warned against the perils of bodily passions and desire in a search for the divine, of course, but Aurelius never heard a 147 GTA singing its merry little heart out.

Though, there was nothing good in the way the Alfa 4C sung its own song. We’re not in Kansas anymore, Kansas being the holy land of Busso V6s. On paper the 4C promised many fireworks, chief among which was a turbocharged 1.7-litre four-cylinder.

Fine, we all thought, Alfa’s got history with four-pots, the classic twin-cam inline four a superb example. But alas, the 4C’s production tune – though a punchy 237bhp – was laggy and a bit lacklustre. For an Alfa to drone rather than soar is surely a crime in Italy.

Fine, we all thought. It’s got a carbon chassis. It weighs less than a tonne. It hasn’t got power steering. Surely it’d make for a compelling driver’s car? Certainly exciting, if your measure of excitement is ‘hunt down every road imperfection and overreact dramatically’. I’ve looked after a couple of freakishly strong, supernaturally stubborn young dogs who dance to the beat of their own snoots, and the Alfa is exactly that dog.

But you love that dog, right? Aurelius was clearly booping the 4C’s snoot when he said the art of living is more like wrestling than dancing; the Cayman dances, the 4C you fight. After all, an artful life requires being prepared to meet and withstand sudden and unexpected attacks according to Big Mac, forewarning us about the 4C’s obsession with road camber.

Who cares. Who cares that you’d have to take up aggressive yoga just to get in and out of the thing; that once you’re in it’s not a world-class cabin; that you’d need a healthy level of commitment to daily one of these; that there’d be a nagging suspicion you should have just got that bloody Cayman instead.

Forget that. Dwell on the beauty of life. For you have power over your mind. That the pain of driving an Alfa 4C is not due to the 4C itself, but to your estimate of it, and you have the power to revoke it at any moment.

Damn it, here we go again. I want an Alfa Romeo 4C, badly.