First pictures – soft-top Alfa Romeo 4C hits the road

June 11, 2014 by Alastair Sloane

Demand in Europe for the Alfa Romeo 4C coupe has pushed back its arrival date in New Zealand from a planned launch in July to perhaps December – and the same delay can be expected when the soft-top spider goes into production early next year.

“It’s (coupe) going to be later in the year now, the fourth quarter,” said FiatChrysler NZ product planning manager Lance Bennett. “We haven’t got production numbers (for NZ) yet. We can’t wait for it. We want it now – we’re hoping grey imports don’t beat it here.”

These are the first pictures of the road-ready spider, taken by Automedia spy photographers at Maserati’s plant in Modena, Italy, where both 4C variants are being made. Apart from a bit of black tape here and there, the car is said to be almost ready for production.

Like the coupe, the spider is a mix of carbon-fibre chassis and composite bodywork. It is pretty much a mirror image of the coupe, except for the canvas soft-top and wide carbon-fibre rollover bar. The same lightweight material was used for the windscreen frame and spoilers and as a consequence the conversion to open-top has added only 60kg to the coupe’s 895kg.

The coupe and soft-top were designed by Lorenzo Ramaciotti of the Alfa Romeo Style Centre, who also helped pen the Lotus Elite and Exige and 10 Ferrari designs.

The spider was first shown as a prototype at Geneva this year. It sported a dual exhaust with electrically operated valves to improve both performance and soundtrack, and carbon-fibre clamshell headlights. Both will make it into production. Like the coupe, power comes from a 170kW/350Nm 1.8-litre turbocharged four-cylinder engine mounted east-west behind the two seats and driving the rear wheels via a six-speed duel-clutch gearbox.

If you are in a position to shell out upwards of NZ$600,000 for the 60^thanniversary Porsche 911 S/T or optional Porsche 911 S/T Heritage, you’ll no doubt want the signature titanium watch that goes with it. That’s how Porsche figures it anyway. Or, if you want the watch you’ll need to get the car. Both the car and the watch are limited to 1963 units, the year the original 911 model broke cover. The watch – Chronograph 1 911 S/T and Chronograph 1 911 S/T Heritage – and the car carry matching edition numbers. The watch is priced at $US13,500, or around $NZ22,200. The car, says Porsche NZ, starts at $NZ608,000. A “strictly limited number” will go into production for NZ early next year.

Eight European Union countries are pushing to weaken new EU emissions limits for cars, saying they are overly ambitious and unrealistic for carmakers to hit. The eight countries – France, Italy, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia – said in a joint paper that parts of the proposed Euro 7 regulation, including curbs on exhaust pipe emissions, should be scrapped entirely. They said the limits would force carmakers to invest in improving exhaust emissions performance, money which would be better spent on developing zero-emission vehicles. Taken together, the countries would have enough votes to block the proposal.

A go-anywhere EV concept for the US military uses an onboard 12kW diesel generator to top up the batteries on the move. The all-wheel-drive has 800-volt technology and a 200kWh battery pack to power three electric motors, two in the rear and one up front. Claimed output is 745kW/15,590Nm, or 1000hp and 11,500 ft-lb of torque. The four-seater was developed by the defence division of General Motors and is based on the platform of the Hummer SUV. It rides on Fox performance shock absorbers and 37-inch tyres and comes with “exceptional” approach and departure angles for off-road mobility. Maximum range using the generator to keep things ticking over is said to be around 500km.

The outside temperature in Midland, Texas, was 40.5C when staff at the local office of the US National Weather Service set out to show the cabin of a closed car can literally get baking hot in summer. They mixed up a batch of chocolate chip cookies and laid them on the car’s dashboard – the surface of which showed a temperature of 87.7C. A little over four hours later the cookies were ready to eat. “Even though ours weren’t golden brown, we can confirm that they are done and delicious,” the staff wrote on Facebook.