While any Alfa Romeo 4C is highly limited simply by nature—it hasn’t exactly been a sales success—the Italian brand has announced more details of a special version of the carbon-fiber sports car, the 4C Spider 33 Stradale Tributo. It honors one of its most legendary historic models and also serves as the final version of the car built for the North American market.
The original 33 Stradale is of course the sensational and highly limited road version of the Tipo 33 race car that was campaigned around the globe starting in 1967. The Stradale was produced from 1967 to 1969, with just 18 being built overall; its rarity, as well as its sultry bodywork, places the value of the original cars north of $10 million. Provided you can find someone willing to sell, of course.
For its part, the new 4C 33 Stradale Tributo will cost a fair chunk less: $81,590. For that money you will get one of just 33 examples to be imported from the Modena assembly facility, each one coated in tri-coat Rosso Villa d’Esta paint and rolling on staggered-diameter, bronze-colored phone dial wheels measuring 18 inches up front and 19 inches in the rear.
The car’s carbon-fiber monocoque, which still remains a rarity outside the world of far more expensive exotic cars, gets a special transparent red finish, while the interior is upholstered in black suede and Tobacco leather. Plaques bearing the name of the car are fitted to the dashboard, center console, and side sills; the console plaque is individually numbered, and the same number will also be applied to a book that covers the 4C’s design and technology, as well the original 33 Stradale’s history.
The 33 Stradale Tributo, which was first announced way back in November 2019, is also fairly well loaded, coming standard with the dual-mode Akrapovič exhaust, additional carbon-fiber trim, a sportier suspension tune, bi-xenon headlamps, an Italian flag motif for the side mirrors, a battery charger, and a car cover. “Centro Stile Alfa Romeo” badges and an optional piano black finish for the front and rear fascias round out the 33 Stradale Tributo.
The hardcore 4C coupe arrived in 2014 as a 2015 model to spearhead Alfa’s return to the U.S., although the fortunes of the car and company—which has since added the Giulia sedan and Stelvio SUV—haven’t been particularly rosy despite the models’ scintillating driving dynamics and Italianate aesthetics. (If anything is emblematic of 4C’s difficulties, it’s that this new special edition is a 2020 model going on sale in December 2020, while the 15-unit Spider Italia Edition was also a 2020, but announced in February 2019. ) A Spider version of the 4C was added a couple of years after launch, and the fixed-roof coupe discontinued in 2018.
