Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione – Click above for high-res image gallery
Imagine you’re a male (Autoblog surveys say most of you are, so this shouldn’t be hard). You’ve been invited to the Playboy Mansion for their annual Halloween party. You arrive, grab a flute of bubbly, get introduced to the crusty remains of Hugh Hefner and after a few minutes lay eyes on the most beautiful specimen of redheaded femininity the world has ever seen. You fight your knees from buckling, walk over and give it the ol’ college try. Miraculously, you hit it off. She’s entertaining, interesting and a joy to see and be seen with. One thing leads to another and you make your way upstairs into one of Heff’s exotically appointed love dens.
You’re ready to embark on one of the most pleasurable experiences of your life when… there’s no spark. No connection. No chemistry. You use every trick in the book to make things work, but to no avail. Despite her arsenal of attributes, this exquisite example of sensuality just doesn’t “do it” for you.
If you can understand that scenario, then you can understand our brief, uninspiring stint with the Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione. Read on for more.
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We love the Chevy HHR Panel. It’s way cooler-looking than it’s window-clad sibling, and in SS trim it’s damn fun to drive, too. The HHR isn’t a good first date vehicle, however, because nothing puts up more red flags on a first date than a vehicle without windows.
The last generation Scion xB was unique. It wasn’t pretty, but showed that its owner walked to his or her own beat. The new, curvier xB lost its Fonzy, as evidenced by the sudden up-tick of 39 year-old MBAs at your local Scion store. Not every date is looking for someone “cool”, but the xB provides a double dose of date repellent by also being unappealing to the eye.
The Lotus Elise is a hot car that just so happens to be one of the most nimble pieces of transportation on earth, but getting in and out of these things is a challenge at best. You might as well pick up your date in a Jamaican Bobsled. On the bright side, effort-free ingress and egress gives some indication of agility… We don’t know exactly what that means, but it could be a good thing.
Nothing says “My grandfather died and left me his car” like a night out in the Mercury Grand Marquis. It’s also tough to have fun when people keep mistaking your love machine for a taxi cab. The Grand Marquis is a real throw-back to the days of RWD body-on-frame sedans, but your date likely won’t go out of his or her way to extol the virtues of the Mercury’s floating, glassy ride.
Nothing says “My grandfather died and left me his Grand Marquis, and my dad wanted to borrow it so I’m stuck with his car” quite like the Ford Taurus. It’s big, spacey and devoid of any manner of style. Ford tried to market the Taurus based on its elevated seating position and size of its 22-cubic-foot trunk, but the buying public wasn’t impressed. We doubt your date will be all that excited, either.
The QX56 is huge, guzzles gas and looks like it was designed by a team of drunken Picasso poseurs. Driving a QX56 tells your date that you spend no time picking anything based on aesthetics, which will make your date wonder why you picked him or her to begin with. Unfortunately, if you already own this hulking utility vehicle, there isn’t exactly a market for really expensive used SUVs, so you can always date other QX56 owners – if you can find them.
Lets get this straight: we’re not knocking this badass truck. It can tow 18,000 pounds and there is little Ford’s 19-foot-long hauler can’t do at the job site or on the farm. But unless you met your date at a tractor pull or Toby Keith concert, you don’t want to show up in a 9/8 scale Bigfoot that can tow Rhode Island.
Picking up a date in a minivan means you’re either very cocky or incredibly uninteresting. Show up at someone’s house in a Chevy Uplander and not only are you that guy with that minivan, but you picked the worst possible one.
There is nothing wrong with owning a new car at the lower end of the economic spectrum, but the Toyota Yaris looks like an Eastern European clown car. Well, we guess the Yaris would be OK if you were taking your date to the circus, because that way you can tell them it’s a themed outing.
Any time you get behind the wheel of a Ferrari, you’re having a good day. The 599 GTB has all the goods: the prancing horse, a 600+ hp V12 and a $300,000 price tag. But it’s not for first dates. We know you think we’re crazy here, but if you show up with one of the hottest supercars around, the date peaks at “Holy $!%*, nice car!”, and has nowhere to go but down.
Photos copyright ©2009 Drew Phillips / Weblogs, Inc.
The 8C has been around long enough that you already know what matters. It’s stunning, perfectly proportioned and should only be available in one color: Competition Red. Beneath its achingly gorgeous carbon fiber exterior you’ll find the same platform that underpins the Maserati Gran Turismo, along with a dry-sump 4.7-liter V8 hand assembled by Ferrari. A six-speed sequential gearbox channels the bent eight’s 450 horsepower (at 7,000 RPM) and 354 pound-feet of torque (at 4,750 RPM) to a limited slip differential nestled between the rear wheels, delivering a claimed 0-60 MPH sprint of 4.2 seconds and a top speed over 180 MPH.
Open up the long, upkicked door and another side of the 8C’s character unfolds in front of you. The seats, which place your posterior a few inches from terra firma, belong in MOMA. They’re masterfully sculpted, assertively clinging to your back and legs, and coated in the finest cowhide old man Giuseppe can rustle up outside Modena.
The dash is another modern masterwork of minimalism, with a faultless blend of carbon fiber and aluminum adorning the center stack, tunnel, doors and steering wheel. Ah, but wait. Something’s amiss in the boot-shaped land. It would appear Alfa’s beancounters couldn’t stomach the cost of a carbon fiber dash, transmission tunnel and two door panels. They’re all fake, save the panel housing the start button, transmission modes and parking brake switch. But no matter. After you depress the cold aluminum “Engine Start” button to breathe life into the high-strung V8 ahead of you, the faux fiber is the least of your concerns.
A rousing burble rockets out the rear, followed by an electronically controlled blip before the 8C settles into a soothing, seductive idle. The world melts away as you grab the paddle shifter, engage first, let off of the brake and beginning slowly making your way onto the road.
The ride is on the rough side, as if Alfa’s engineers simply figured that Hard directly translates into Handling. But we’ve endured stiffly sprung rides before and the 8C is a proper exotic, so we want that sense of hardened agility with a wanton disregard for chiropractic costs.
But just as we start to stretch its legs across the rolling hills of the Napa Valley, it becomes abundantly clear that the while the 8C can make it through a workout, it doesn’t enjoy the exercise.
The steering wheel, which is a bit on the big side for a such a sporting ride, conveys every lump and divot into your palms, but fails to completely communicate the interaction between the tires and the tarmac. The overly taut suspension crashes along some of the more neglected sections of our drive loop, causing the 8C to skip significantly when speeds increase and corner forces test the aging underpinnings. And while the power delivery and lock, load and explode gear changes – particularly with Sport mode engaged – are enough to send your skull into the headrest, the visceral thrills aren’t a product of thrust – they come from manhandling the 8C into submission, keeping all four tires in constant contact with the road and avoiding tail-out, off-road excursions when trying to jump from apex to corner exit.
What we have here is a failure to communicate. And it never went away.
The more we pushed, the more it shoved. And after 20 miles of attempting to connect, all we were left with was a disconcerting air of apprehension. The only bright spot to be found were the brakes, which proved unflappable throughout our drive, providing consistent, fade-free pedal feel time after time. But even that lone light wasn’t enough to instill confidence at anything beyond six or seven tenths, begging the question: What happened?
Realizing that only 500 examples would find their way to obscenely wealthy collectors, did Fiat – Alfa’s parent company – simply rush the chassis and suspension development, trying desperately to keep costs in check, while focusing solely on appearance? Maybe. But for something so inexcusably attractive, you expect performance to be on par. And it simply isn’t. Making the Alfa Romeo 8C Competitizione the one redheaded supermodel we would kick out of bed.
Featured Gallery
We love the Chevy HHR Panel. It’s way cooler-looking than it’s window-clad sibling, and in SS trim it’s damn fun to drive, too. The HHR isn’t a good first date vehicle, however, because nothing puts up more red flags on a first date than a vehicle without windows.
The last generation Scion xB was unique. It wasn’t pretty, but showed that its owner walked to his or her own beat. The new, curvier xB lost its Fonzy, as evidenced by the sudden up-tick of 39 year-old MBAs at your local Scion store. Not every date is looking for someone “cool”, but the xB provides a double dose of date repellent by also being unappealing to the eye.
The Lotus Elise is a hot car that just so happens to be one of the most nimble pieces of transportation on earth, but getting in and out of these things is a challenge at best. You might as well pick up your date in a Jamaican Bobsled. On the bright side, effort-free ingress and egress gives some indication of agility… We don’t know exactly what that means, but it could be a good thing.
Nothing says “My grandfather died and left me his car” like a night out in the Mercury Grand Marquis. It’s also tough to have fun when people keep mistaking your love machine for a taxi cab. The Grand Marquis is a real throw-back to the days of RWD body-on-frame sedans, but your date likely won’t go out of his or her way to extol the virtues of the Mercury’s floating, glassy ride.
Nothing says “My grandfather died and left me his Grand Marquis, and my dad wanted to borrow it so I’m stuck with his car” quite like the Ford Taurus. It’s big, spacey and devoid of any manner of style. Ford tried to market the Taurus based on its elevated seating position and size of its 22-cubic-foot trunk, but the buying public wasn’t impressed. We doubt your date will be all that excited, either.
The QX56 is huge, guzzles gas and looks like it was designed by a team of drunken Picasso poseurs. Driving a QX56 tells your date that you spend no time picking anything based on aesthetics, which will make your date wonder why you picked him or her to begin with. Unfortunately, if you already own this hulking utility vehicle, there isn’t exactly a market for really expensive used SUVs, so you can always date other QX56 owners – if you can find them.
Lets get this straight: we’re not knocking this badass truck. It can tow 18,000 pounds and there is little Ford’s 19-foot-long hauler can’t do at the job site or on the farm. But unless you met your date at a tractor pull or Toby Keith concert, you don’t want to show up in a 9/8 scale Bigfoot that can tow Rhode Island.
Picking up a date in a minivan means you’re either very cocky or incredibly uninteresting. Show up at someone’s house in a Chevy Uplander and not only are you that guy with that minivan, but you picked the worst possible one.
There is nothing wrong with owning a new car at the lower end of the economic spectrum, but the Toyota Yaris looks like an Eastern European clown car. Well, we guess the Yaris would be OK if you were taking your date to the circus, because that way you can tell them it’s a themed outing.
Any time you get behind the wheel of a Ferrari, you’re having a good day. The 599 GTB has all the goods: the prancing horse, a 600+ hp V12 and a $300,000 price tag. But it’s not for first dates. We know you think we’re crazy here, but if you show up with one of the hottest supercars around, the date peaks at “Holy $!%*, nice car!”, and has nowhere to go but down.
Photos copyright ©2009 Drew Phillips / Weblogs, Inc.
Thanks to Douglas Magnon, president of the Riverside International Automotive Museum, who provided one of the 99 8Cs imported to the U.S. for photos and many thanks to World Class Driving for lending us their 8C for testing. You can get more information about WCD’s extensive exotic car driving programs here and check out their new program, I Drive Green.