Oh don’t worry about reliability these days. Mine’s a 2003 and never misses a beat because it’s properly maintained.

Good spot. Guessing budgetry constraints ... the 4C was put together on a shoestring.

They were working before the 8C too :)

You spelled Alfa wrong twice, so you’re blacklisted now anyway.

It’s mainly another way of cheating the emissions/mileage tests.

Three door hatches inevitably look better, but they’re not actually any shorter ...

It’s a consequence of high beltlines, designers need a way to break up the huge swathes of sheetmetal between the sill and the greenhouse.

Holy shit, is that real?

That thing is proportioned like a child’s toy.

Mainly aesthetics. Not sure about in the US, but in Europe you’re not allowed to have wheels protruding outside the bodywork (by more than 20mm or something like that). However, it’s measured from the top of the tyre, so by stretching the tyre onto a larger rim you can skirt the law and put fatter wheels on your…

Easier to heel and toe too I guess.

It’s partly a side effect of rising beltlines. 15s and 16s would get lost in the acres of sheetmetal on the side of a modern car.

I actually prefer that look, rather than embedding it in some nasty plastic bezel or cowl.

High beltlines also need big wheels and extraneous “character line” body creases everywhere to visually fill in the blank space.

Yep. “Oh dear I seem to have backed over my child. The solution to this problem is clearly to mandate video cameras on all new cars.”

It’s amazing what turbos did.

Guessing it’s not a JTS, then ...

Alfa owner, can confirm.

They made a lot of Testarossas. They’re not scarce enough for insane prices.

It’s those gold coffin-spoke wheels like on a Stratos.