4C Spider

Make
Alfa Romeo
Segment
Compact

Still thinking about picking up a new Alfa Romeo 4C Spider? Better stop thinking and act fast, because once current inventories are depleted, there won't be any more.

Plans for a new sports car have been dropped from Alfa Romeo's future-product map, so there won't be a successor (at least not in the foreseeable future). And thus, it seems, spells the end of a much-loved but aging and regrettably slow-selling sports car for which there are few direct competitors still left on the market.

While the 4C Spider remains available to buy in the US, "production of the 4C was closed last summer," confirmed Davide D'Amico, Head of Communications for FCA Italy.

Deliveries of the 4C have continued since production ended, as "deliveries clearly extended over time because being a car almost artisanal takes time [to produce]." Presumably, Alfa dealers in the US who placed orders for the 4C Spider are still expecting a few models to arrive, hence why the car is still listed on the Alfa Romeo US website.

It's a sad end to a car that had so much potential. Following the concept that first appeared in 2011, FCA first rolled out the 4C in 2013 when the ink was still drying on the merger between the Fiat and Chrysler groups. The open-air Spider variant followed in 2015, and since last year, has been the only version offered (in the US at least).

The lightweight sports car is built around a carbon-fiber tub like you'd find on much more expensive supercars, with a small but punchy 1.75-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine mounted behind it, sending 237 horsepower and 258 lb-ft of torque to the rear wheels through a six-speed dual-clutch transmission.

Despite the relatively accessible sticker price below $70k, the 4C's narrow appeal has consigned it to the fringes of the industry. FCA sold 663 of them in the US in 2015, but only 238 last year – numbers that might be fine for a six- or seven-figure exotic, but without the MSRP to make it profitable, the automaker has evidently struggled to maintain the business case – especially as it starts to show its age now six years since its market debut.

With its closest competitors in the Lotus Elise and Exige withdrawn from the American market due to regulatory non-compliance, the 4C's departure leaves the five-figure, mid-engined sports car market pretty much all to the new Corvette C8 and Porsche 718.