2014 Alfa Romeo 4C Design and Interior

The Alfa Romeo 4C is essentiality and light weight, a car where everything has been designed to provide total driving pleasure. That same essentiality shaped its design. The car expresses a "natural beauty" that results from a perfect blend of function and form. Its layout and size immediately brings one of the most beautiful coupés of all time to mind, the Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale. Like the legendary 33 Stradale, the 4C is designed to meet extreme mechanical and functional requirements. Its body aerodynamically 'covers' the engine and chassis with clean and essential surfaces.

Designed by Alfa Romeo engineers and made at the Maserati plant in Modena, this captivating coupé with two racing bucket seats uses materials and design solutions like carbon, aluminium, and rear-wheel drive derived from the 8C Competizione along with technologies from Alfa Romeo's latest models, all thoroughly revised to maximise the new car's sporting appeal. Proof of that lies in the new 1750 Turbo Petrol with direct injection and aluminium block, the sophisticated latest-generation "Alfa TCT" dry twin clutch automatic transmission and the Alfa DNA driving mode selector with the brand-new Race mode.

The compact dimensions make this car with 2 bucket seats truly unique among its competitors: it is just under 4 metres long, 200 cm wide, 118 cm high and with a wheelbase of less than 2.4 metres. These dimensions serve both to emphasise the car's 'supercar proportions' and to accentuate its agility.

Designed by Alfa Romeo Centro Stile, the development of the 4C's exterior was characterised from the start by the need to enhance the style of the car and the technical characteristics both from a dynamic and aerodynamic point of view. For this reason, all the style solutions adopted have been optimised in accordance with the ultimate goal of the car: performance.

To meet this end, the surfaces were treated as sculpture and engineers worked side by side with the designers to carve all the innovative aerodynamic solutions out of it. The result of this teamwork led to a car that conveys pure sports style through a union of technology and beauty, which is an essential requisite for any Alfa Romeo sports car, where form is always first and foremost function. Besides, every structural element has been conceived for maximum dynamic efficiency, and to help create the downforce needed to ensure maximum grip under fast cornering.

The rear volume, sinuous and enveloping, encloses and embraces the beating heart of the car: the mechanics and the engine, visible through the rear window. All this, thanks to the development of a marked musculature above the wheels, lends strength and power to the rear area.

The rear musculature supports its structure on round rear light clusters and on the side air intakes necessary to cool the intercooler and the air inlet for engine intake. From the energy-charged rear volume and the two side air intakes spring the two long muscles which lend speed and dynamism to the side, generating the necessary volume at the front end to house the headlights and, on the central part, the two robust ribs running along the bonnet, tracing the unmistakable "V" and coming to their natural conclusion around the shield. This, together with the two side intakes, forms the famous 'Trefoil', a distinguishing trait of all Alfa Romeo cars.

Even at the rear, what first appears to be an element of pure graphics actually serves a clear purpose. Look at the two lines alongside the number plate holder: aesthetically, these create two points of light that add movement and dynamism to the rear volume. Functionally, however, they also protect the light cluster from pendular weight in the event of rear impact.

The entire tail section - starting from the rear upper profile and the lower profile characterised by a large "diffuser" with aerodynamic spoiler and air outlets - was subjected to extensive wind tunnel testing to ensure the best possible aerodynamic performance.

Lastly, the exterior colour range reflects the spirit of the car and is essential as the Alfa personality demands: red, white, black and grey. However, special attention has been paid to technology with the introduction of three-layer colours. The by now consolidated and well-known Competizione Red is the essence of the Alfa Romeo spirit with its depth, shine and iridescence that shapes the volumes of the car.

The interior of the Alfa Romeo 4C is the result of an in-depth study of anthropometric and ergonomic parameters that established a relationship between the sports layout of the car and features that form a 'continuity' with the design of the body. It is a design concept in which the various elements - dashboard, instruments and seats - follow specific driver and passenger usability and comfort criteria.

Definition of the interior took on particular importance when configuring the carbon fibre 'monocoque' cell. This veritable 'monolithic core' led to a rational organisation of the main construction elements in keeping with the principle of integrating parts and optimising weights. Initially focused on arranging controls and instruments so they are turned toward the driver, this approach actually simplified construction in terms of assembly processes and separation into subassemblies when industrialising the project.