Hi
@ericinlondon
It will be your bikes that will be doing less miles on those sunny weekends, not the 4C.
You will be getting up in the middle of the night and driving to some quiet twisty roads just to blow out the cobwebs from your Alfa.
I’m biased, but I vote for a Spider. I also vote for waiting a while to find the right one.
Just like spotting a beautiful woman in a bikini on the beach with her top off, it is a very different experience in a topless Spider.
4C’s are made to be driven enthusiastically, roads with speed cameras everywhere are less fun than gentleman’s race days at tracks with your mates, but collectors may never know the joy of this activity if they never want to take their precious car out of the garage for fear of adding a few miles.
Unless they are stored properly, 4C’s that sit for months at a time tend to have more issues than those that are driven regularly. We see that a lot on these forums.
When you own a 4C and actually drive it properly, by that I mean drive it as it was intended to be driven, the Italian way, enthusiastically at full throttle, as fast as the wind will carry you, what I have written here will all make sense.
If you want the low mileage collector version of the 4C, then be prepared to pay over the odds, as the boys that have still got their childhood Matchbox cars in the original packaging to make them worth something one day in the future have already bought those cars. My Matchbox cars as a kid were all dinged and scratched, but boy did I have fun with them. The cars I have owned over the years have all bought me pleasure by driving them and appreciating them at the time.
My 4C Spider has 80,000 km on it, has a few stone chips, some scrapes under the nose, and has seen some track days and skid pans where I learned more about car control and what the little Alfa can really do at the limit than I ever thought possible. She gets driven in the sun and rain and we drive with the top off whenever we can. It is a daily driver and the car stands up well to all that goes with that.
Six years of having a 4C in my life and I still look back and admire her curves when I park her and she can turn heads like any beautiful motoring work of art wherever she takes us.
Good luck with your hunt for “the one”.
Cheers,
Alf.
www.autotrader.co.uk
