Back on the throttle, flat out through the left over 100mph on the exit.
Such a joy to drive this car but can it take on the Alfa for pure driving thrills.
Alfa Romeo is one of the most evocative names in the world of motoring.
But for the last few decades the firm hasn't had a sports car that lives up to their illustrious
sporting heritage but now they have - this car, the Alfa Romeo 4C.
With a carbon fibre chassis, dual-clutch gearbox and a mid-engine layout the spec sheet reads
like a super car, yet it costs less than 50K.
But how does it compare to arguably the best mid-engined sports car in the world - Porsche's
Cayman.
Well, in an Auto Express track battle, let's find out.
The stunningly beautiful 4C is a return to Alfa Romeo's sports car past.
With its carbon fibre chassis, it weights just 895kg while the 1.7-litre four-cylinder
turbo engine produces 270bhp and 350Nm of torque.
Now into its second generation the Porsche Cayman is famous for its perfect handling
the 2.7-litre flat-six engine has 271bhp and 290Nm of torque.
But it weights 1,310kg so that's 400kg heavier than the carbon-fibre Alfa Romeo.
So we've got a very standard Cayman, it's not a Cayman S just a standard Cayman.
Hasn't got an active damping system - it's just a very standard Cayman.
The Cayman's lovely it works on so many layers it's a fantastic road car, rides relatively
nicely, quite comfortable on the road so it's got that element.
But the big question is, can it take on the Alfa for pure driving thrill?
And, so many things about this car just feel perfect - the second you drive onto the circuit
you just feel absolutely at the centre of the action.
Everything's beautifully balanced - you just feel like the car is pivoting around you so
obviously mid-engined, rear-wheel-drive, just absolutely perfect balance in the chassis.
There's a little bit of roll in the car but nothing bad, you know it's just such a wonderfully
well-balanced car.
It's got a sports exhaust which is really good.
Traction is amazing - it's quite long gearing in the Cayman so, and the engine only really
starts to sing above 4,500RPM so on the road you can sometimes feel like it's a little
bit out of its comfort zone but the track when you get it working it really sounds amazing
so that's the first lap done, little bit of heating to the tyres.
It's come round and you start a flying lap, so across the line, second gear, and again
because that gearing is quite short down the second here, there's so much feel through
the steering that you just always know what the car is doing.
Change of direction is amazing there, lots of grip as the car's loaded up with that long
long left-hander.
Up to third gear, just over 100mph and 110 hard on the brakes down to second gear for
the corner.
Loads of feel through the brakes, ABS doesn't come in too hard.
Third gear, amazing traction on the exit of that tight corner.
Again, into these higher-speed corners the control and the balance on the car is just
- you really feel what's going on, it's such a joy to drive this car.
It's so beautifully balanced, sounds great and just communicates so well.
Third gear, high speed change of direction here.
You can feel the weight through here but, still, pretty amazing through there.
Right up at the top of the revs in third, down to second, really good brakes.
Into the apex, great traction into the last corner.
Such a lovely car and across the line.
So the Porsche was a joy to drive and lapped the circuit in 1 minute 12.7 seconds the question
is, is the Alfa Romeo going to be faster?
Starting a practice lap the first thing you notice about the car is that it doesn't have
power steering.
Surely the reason for not having power steering is to save weight, but also to give you an
uninterrupted purity of steering feel - unfortunately, the steering feel isn't very good.
The steering really squirms around and kicks back quite a lot.
But you can't really feel what the front end's doing which is a shame because the one thing
you're going to want if you've got no power steering is good steering feel but it's a
shame.
The engine's quite coarse, it's not a nice noise like the six-cylinder Porsche.
It does make itself known in the cabin but the dual-clutch gearbox is pretty quick and
perfectly suited to the job.
The other disappointment you notice really is the fact that the brake pedal - it's very
strong and there's plenty of stopping power, but there's not a lot of feel to the brake
pedal and it's quite hard to brake progressively.
The retardation is quite grabby and it gets into the ABS very quickly, but the body control
around that high-speed corner is just amazing.
There's hardly any roll in this car it does feel like a really planted track car.
So, let's see if that gives it the advantage against the stopwatch.
So, coming round now starting the lap - trying to get good traction out of it, which is pretty
good.
Much shorter gearing than the Porsche, so we're a gear up in some of these corners,
so change the gear into this first corner here - really good through there as it changes
direction from left to right.
A little bit of understeer as you get on the power - there is a little bit more understeer
in this car than you probably would like and because of the fact with the Turbo power it's
quite hard to dial the understeer to oversteer because when you get back on the throttle
you have the engines not on boost and then it suddenly comes into boost.
It's better now on the track when it's dried off, when the track was damp that made the
car quite edgy quite tricky.
Now that it's dried off it's pretty good and through these high speed corners turning and
the really stiff body control means that there's lots of grip and it is really planted through
here.
But again just a little bit too much understeer, mighty through here though, little lift through
the right.
Back on the throttle flat out through the left over 100 on the exit hard on the brakes
squirms a little bit again too much on the braking.
Power through the gears, second gear, third gear around to the last corner coming up to
the line now and across the line.
Incredibly, given how different they are to drive this pair record an identical lap time
around our test track.
That's the first time that's every happened - so what's going to win our track battle?
Well the Alfa is beautiful, has loads of grip and fantastic body control but unfortunately
it lacks the sublime chassis, communication and fingertip feel of the Porsche.
The Cayman is also more practical, cheaper and better to live with day-to-day.
So, while we love the look of the Alfa, the all-round abilities of the Cayman make it
one of the best sports cars money can buy - and it wins this track battle.