1982 Alfa Romeo Spider Veloce Convertible 2-door 2.0l on 2040-cars

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2015 Alfa Romeo 4C Spider First Drive [w/video]

New cars are getting, to quote Alice during her Adventures in Wonderland, "curiouser and curiouser." Take the Alfa Romeo 4C, a car from a mass-market European brand with supercar-like construction at a price that starts under $55,000. The exotic looks on the outside are countered with an almost pre-war era lack of frills on the inside, but the 4C drives like a street-legal go-kart when you put it to work. That price is either a bargain or a ripoff, depending on your priorities. This oddity now has a topless variant in the 2015 Alfa Romeo 4C Spider, which is almost identical to the coupe at first glance. On the stat sheet, two numbers separate this open-top car from its closed-cabin sibling. The first is ground clearance, which goes down in the Spider: 4.4 inches here compared to 4.5 inches in the coupe. The second number is 22. That's how many pounds the Spider gains by losing its roof, for a claimed weight of 2,487 pounds. Alfa Romeo senior product planner Fabio Migliavacca says none of that mass comes from body reinforcement. The 4C's carbon fiber tub was engineered for convertible duty from the go. Alfa Romeo engineered the 4C's carbon fiber tub to handle convertible duty from the beginning, so the roof on the coupe – made of the same sheet-molded compound as the rest of the body – isn't a structural member. The Spider's canvas soft top accounts for an extra 14.3 pounds, making it heavier than the roof on the coupe. And yes, you read that correctly, the Spider comes standard with a canvas top. The optional carbon fiber roof panel costs $3,500. In fact, the options list is so full of woven composite accessories that, during the presentation, one journalist asked if the $1,595 charge for destination and handling could also be had in carbon fiber. The other 7.7 pounds comes from small alterations. The Spider gets larger mufflers – 11-liter cans here, as opposed to eight liters on the coupe - for a richer exhaust note. The car's rear haunches are reshaped to be fuller than those on the hardtop, and the engine cover is now a single solid piece, without the coupe's revealing clear insert. A few changes on the Spider will come to the coupe, including a pair of cellphone pockets, one next to each seat. The awful Parrot stereo goes away, replaced by a more friendly Alpine unit. Some coupe options are standard features on the Spider, like the full leather interior. Two of the six seat styles and four of the six available wheels are exclusive to the Spider.

Alfa Romeo planning a four-cylinder, 350-hp Giulia Veloce?

At the moment, Alfa Romeo sells a 2.0-liter, turbocharged four-cylinder Giulia with 280 horsepower for $37,995, and a 2.9-liter, twin-turbo six-cylinder Giulia Quadrifoglio with 505 hp for $72,000. A vacuum separates those poles, and the marketplace, echoing nature, hates it. Some recent Internet sleuthing in The Netherlands and in the U.S. might have identified a suitable object to fill that void: a 350-hp version of the 2.0-liter turbo. Last December, Dutch shop Squadra Tuning discovered an entry on Fiat Chrysler's Dutch-market parts site for a 2.0-liter turbo Giulia producing 350 metric horsepower (345 U.S. ponies). Not long after that, an Autoevolution reader submitted an image of an FCA document for the NAFTA region, which listed a 2.0-liter, 350-hp model for the USA equipped with the eight-speed automatic and all-wheel drive. The name of the model powered by that engine: "Giulia Veloce." Certain international markets already offer a Veloce trim with an auto transmission and all-wheel drive, but engine choices are the 280-hp 2.0-liter we already get, and a 2.2-liter turbodiesel we don't get. If those overseas discoveries were merely smoke, conjecture took a huge step toward fire a few days ago when Bozi Tatarevic found a 2.0-liter, 350-hp engine option on Mopar Tech Authority, FCA's OEM service portal. Car and Driver asked Alfa Romeo for clarification, the carmaker responding, "No plans for any other engines for Giulia in North America for 2018 model year besides the 2.0L and 2.9L [gasoline] versions." Having ruled 2018 out, onlookers have turned their eyes to 2019 for the introduction of this 350-hp motor. What's more, a comment on Tatarevic's tweet sends speculation into 48-volt overboost. Twitter user Rob P replied, "This is pretty well established as happening. MY2019, USA only. 280hp + 48V electrical system + elec. assisted turbo = ~350bhp 'Veloce' in USA nomenclature." No matter how the horses are made, assuming 350 cavalli make it across the Atlantic, Alfa's lineup will profit from the addition: Buyers in the sport sedan segment would get some Italian sprezzatura to cross-shop against German Monumentalitat. Related Video: News Source: Bozi Tatarevic / Twitter via Road and Track Rumormill Alfa Romeo Luxury Performance Sedan FCA alfa romeo giulia 48-volt system giulia

Alpine A110 vs Alfa Romeo 4C Review | Two sports cars enter

YORKSHIRE, U.K. – A proven ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory is all part of Alfa RomeoÂ’s romantic charm. With bodywork like red satin draped over a carbon fiber tub and the promise of a mid-engined, Italian exotic for Cayman money, the 4C was certainly a bold vehicle to relaunch the brand to the American market. Pebble Beach types could appreciate its inspiration in the gorgeous, minimalist Alfa Romeo coupes of the past. Everyone else could kid themselves it was basically a baby Ferrari, never mind the fact it only had 237 horsepower and a four-cylinder engine. At first blush, the 4C was a riot, and remains so in the Spider form itÂ’s still sold in. And it gets the blood pumping in the way a fling with an exotic Italian should, especially compared with the Germanic 50 shades of gray alternatives. I can remember the thrill at driving one back in 2014, its Italian license plates making it feel all the more exotic. It may only have cost $60,000, but it hogged attention like a Ferrari worth four times that. The fun didnÂ’t last. As seductive as the fundamental formula was and still is, time and more measured eyes ultimately found the 4C to be lacking. The ugly, fat-rimmed steering wheel turned out to be a useful visual metaphor for the feel it delivered, simultaneously under-geared and punishingly heavy, especially at low speeds. At higher ones the kickback was violent enough it needed quarter-turn corrections even traveling in a straight line. And the binary power delivery smothered whatever finesse there might have been in the chassis. Its on-limit handling, on track and in the wet, was spooky. Shocked, I called a friend with an old Exige and asked to drive his car along the same route. That I concluded youÂ’d be better off with a 10-year-old Lotus definitely didnÂ’t win me many friends in Milan. Which begs the question: What does the apparently similar Alpine A110 do differently to have earned such overwhelming praise among the same reviewers here in Europe who damned the 4C? Performance stats are comparable, as is the AlpineÂ’s pricing in markets in which it is sold. Both tap into the nostalgia and heritage of their respective brands, not least in the historic long-distance European road rallies both excelled in.