Alfa romeo 147

Alfa romeo 147

I’m amazed that the Italians can produce such desirable cars when they can’t drive. Far too fast, right up the chuff of the car in front, and across the middle of the road in blind bends.I don’t believe the adage that says the red-blooded Italian temperament begets a certain type of car. Quite the opposite the Italian car inspires a certain type of driving, which is why the shaky national road sense is at its lowest ebb behind the wheel of the domestic product.I know, because I have been driving like an Italian, and all because I was driving the new Alfa 147. I love it. For a start, it’s a handsome brute, full of complex interpenetrations. Open the tailgate, for example, and the compound curves along its edges reveal that its designers were not compromised by a desire to be gentle with their press-tool suppliers. All topped off with a nose inspired by the 6C 2500 Villa d’Este of 1949 (it says in the press pack).

Alfa romeo 147

Alfa romeo 147

The 145 and 146. Two versions will be over here in February: the 120bhp 1.6-litre with manual change, and the 150bhp two-litre with Selespeed semi-auto transmission. We’re not getting Dr Diesel’s evil genius or the bog-standard 105bhp 1.6, and to start with we’re only having the three-door versions. By the middle of 2001 you’ll also be able to buy the two-litre with a normal five-speed ‘box and the five-door body, which will be, as a rival car magazine once famously put it, the same except that it will have two extra doors.We’ll dispense with the 1.6-litre first, which is nice enough but not a patch on the two-litre. With the bigger engine comes a 10mm reduction in ride height, stiffer damping rates, fatter and lower profile tyres and a different brake system.

Alfa romeo 147

Alfa romeo 147

In far too many cases this sort of thing serves only to spoil the perfectly good car existing lower down the range, but here they improve it dramatically, and with dire results for driving decorum.The two-litre corners noticeably flatter than the 1.6 yet without a penalty in ride comfort, which is firm but supple. My only complaint is a slight boominess to the road noise at certain speeds. I don’t know what those speeds were, but I think they were quite high.

Alfa romeo 147

Alfa romeo 147

More to the point, the two-litre car offers much better steering feel – very good steering feel, in fact, which is something to celebrate in an era when so many cars seem to be the work of video game programmers. What I know about handling could be written on the back of an Italian tax disc, if anyone actually had one, but I’m confident that the 147 is even better than the 156 (from which it is partly derived) through the curva pericolosa. But I’m still not entirely convinced by Selespeed. On a Fantasy Formula One level it’s wonderful and the way the engine is automatically ‘blipped’ during downchanges is a delight. Smooth upshifts, however, are tricky and require a whole new set of skills which I am now too old to acquire. I can’t help feeling that a paddle-shift like this would be better if the clutch were retained, it being a vital part of the interface ‘twixt man and machine.So I’d be tempted to wait for the two-litre manual, which will be a corking car. It looks great, the interior is rather special, the engine fizzes away maniacally and it goes like hell through the twisties.

Alfa romeo 147

 Alfa romeo 147

 Alfa romeo 147

Alfa romeo 147

 Alfa romeo 147

 Alfa romeo 147

 Alfa romeo 147