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Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione
This is the moment for which every true Alfa Romeo fanatic on the face of the planet has been waiting at least 15 years.
You see, it was way back in 1992 that Alfa Romeo sold its very last model that could credibly claim to be a true “driver’s car”. Since that time Alfa Romeo has had to survive by adapting the front-wheel-drive platforms of its parent company, Fiat.
While some of the results have been quite quick and satisfying to drive, and most have been pretty good looking too, I can’t say that in all that time I’ve sampled one that I believe drives in the way a true Alfa Romeo should drive.
But now, at last, I have. The Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione is an Alfa that is true to its heritage. Powered by a 4.7 litre V8 motor and clothed in an exquisite carbon fibre bodyshell, it packs a 450bhp punch in as beautiful a body as you’ll see on sale anywhere.
In theory its price will be around £111,000 when sales start in the UK early next year. But in practice the entire run of 500 8Cs sold out long before any prospective owners even seated themselves in one, so the 41 that are headed for British shores (all built with left-hand drive) were snapped up quite a long time ago.
It is Alfa Romeo’s first supercar since before the second world war, and if you think it looks good, its beautiful appearance scarcely compares with the wonderfulness of its sound. Or indeed with its superb performance.
The only real question is whether it’s an Alfa Romeo at all. It was designed by Fiat’s in-house styling centre, and uses a Maserati platform as its basis. The engine is a development of one already in use by Maserati, and just to make matters a little more complex, the whole is assembled by Ferrari.
The gearbox and suspension are also derived from systems used on the Maserati Quattroporte and the car is built, not by Alfa Romeo in Turin, but instead by Maserati in Modena. And when those lucky 41 British buyers need their beautiful new vehicles serviced, they will drive them to Maserati dealerships rather than to Alfa garages.
Few owners are likely to complain about the fact that they paid for an Alfa Romeo but ended up with a Maserati, and when the result appears as good as this, I think they will be all too happy to forgive it for being such a hybrid.
Climb aboard the new Alfa 8C and you’re immediately aware that it feels “just right”. It’s a fairly intangible quality, but it means the cabin makes a Porsche’s interior feel almost dowdy by comparison. And as your eyes rove around, they avidly consume acres of leather, plentiful carbon fibre and generous milled aluminium before settling on the slightly swollen front wings that are visible through the little windscreen. It has to be said that the aroma of leather with the 8C truly reeks of promise.
So you turn on the ignition, press the starter button . . . and wait a surprisingly long time for the big V8 engine to rumble into life. It’s undeniably loud, but cultured and smooth at idle, merely hinting at the untold excitements still to come.
Pull back the right-hand paddle (there is no automatic or stick-shift manual available), gently squeeze the throttle and all those years of waiting just slip away.
This is one car whose looks in no way flatter to deceive. The official on-paper numbers report that the 8C will hit 62mph from rest in just 4.2sec, and I have no trouble believing them. Let loose, the engine emits a feral howl as searing and evocative as the cry of any Ferrari.
The gearshift is not as quick as, say, that of an F430, but it will still swap cogs in 0.2sec – or to put it another way, substantially quicker than you’ll ever manage with a conventional manual gearbox.
Sadly, Alfa’s long-awaited supercar is somewhat less impressive through the corners. Its steering is heavy and a poor communicator of road conditions. Turn off the controlling electronics and push the 8C as hard as its engine suggests you should, and you’ll find a car that’s unwilling to let you balance on the edge of adhesion in the way that a Porsche 911 GT3, an Audi R8 or even an Aston Martin Vantage will.
And while all these cars are substantially cheaper than the Alfa Romeo 8C, I suspect they’d prove no slower from point to point and, rather more importantly, offer the true enthusiast just as much fun.
Does this really matter? For once I’m not sure that it does. I don’t think those who have put their orders in for an 8C are expecting it to be Alfa’s answer to the Porsche 911 or any other rival.
They are spending all that extra money in the hope that it will buy them a car that is unique and, in its own way, more special than anything else that similar money will buy. And because Alfa Romeo has cleverly decided to limit its production (though there will be a further 500 8C convertibles made once coupé production stops in 2009), that is exactly what has been achieved.
But unfortunately, this is a story that has a rather sad sting in its tail. That’s because there will be many lifelong Alfa Romeo devotees out there who will be reading this report, hoping that, although the 8C is unattainable, it nevertheless heralds an entirely new direction for Alfa’s standard production cars. Above all, they will be hoping that the Alfa 159 and the Alfa Brera of the future will be rear-wheel-drive cars, as all the best-driving Alfas always were. But of course, they won’t.
Far from signalling a change of philosophy at one of the most loved and enigmatic of Italian marques, the 8C appears to have nothing whatsoever to do with any other Alfa model being planned for the future.
“It is an industrial matter,” a senior Alfa spokesman told me. “There are no plans to build a mainstream production Alfa Romeo car that has rear-wheel drive.”
Which is a great shame. So for the time being, for those of you who are looking for a great-driving Alfa Romeo that you’re likely to be able to afford, the bad news is that the wait must continue.
And for how long . . . nobody knows.
Vital statistics
Model Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione
Engine type 4691cc, eight cylinders
Power/Torque 450bhp / 354 lb ft
Transmission Six-speed manual with paddle shift
Fuel/CO2 17.9mpg / 377g/km
Performance 0-62mph: 4.2sec
Top speed: 181mph
Price £111,000 approx
Verdict Almost as good as it looks
Rating ****
Date of release Early next year
The opposition
Aston Martin V8 Vantage
£83,000
For Lovely looks and sound, great to drive
Against Not quite as quick as it should be
Porsche 911 GT3
£80,660
For The finest sports car for the money
Against Only two useable seats, quite noisy
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