The Sportwagon version of the 156 Alfa Romeo is just arriving in Thailand and our Down Under correspondent John Weinthal has spent a week with one. John
muses on the sometimes troubled history of Alfa Romeo, as well as giving his critique of this version. Here are Words from Weinthal...
Alfa Romeo is on something of a roll, not just in Australia but also worldwide. The Italian company has been owned by the giant FIAT group since 1986,
meaning it is now in the same illustrious stable as Maserati and Ferrari, but Alfa’s own history stretches back 90 years.
No car enthusiast is unaware of the name Alfa - a great sports and formula one racing car maker, and producer of some of the most stylish and driveable
cars of all time. But life has not always been great for Alfa Romeo, here or abroad. After the great Guilia and Guilietta sedan and sports models of the sixties and seventies
and the smaller Alfasud, Alfa fell into something of a dark hole - well a dim one at least.
Nice enough as it was, the Alfetta never quite made it. Alfa’s attempts at larger cars failed to woo executive buyers away from Mercedes, Jaguar and the
then upstart BMW. There were sundry other models which, frankly, we were spared.
So grim were things here that Alfa was out of Australia for nearly a decade until the Pininfarina styled GTV and Spider re-opened Alfa’s doors to us
nearly three years back. These instant styling classics were soon followed by the 156 sedan, and, more recently, the larger 166.
In Alfa’s own words, its cars are not made for people who find driving boring - a matter of getting from A to B, as some express it. Alfa actually gets
quite lyrical about it. Their cars, they say, are built ‘to transcend the essential and enter the realm of emotion.’ I continue quoting: ‘They embody the aesthetic,
have a passion for sophisticated engineering, deliver the pleasure of sitting behind a driving wheel and satisfy the desire to express one’s own personality.’
Well, there’s a fair measure of truth to all that I suppose. They are certainly individual and their Pininfarina lines again have classic written all
over them. Their engineering is not really all that notable these days, although they score some points for offering their interesting Q-Gate auto for the 156 V6, and the
Selespeed button gear change manual models.
Recently I was more than won over by the communicative character of the 2.5 litre V6 powered 156 sedan. The original 156 won the European Car of the Year
title in 1998 and is far and away the company’s top seller here, but most have the none-too-young four cylinder Twin Spark 2 litre engine, but are little the worse for
that. However, for me the V6 was something really special. Its sheer verve, fabulous urge, the sound of that lovely engine and its flat, near-silent ride encouraged me to
forgive it some fairly basic annoyances.
Now I have had a week in another 156 - the so-called Sportwagon. I have more trouble fathoming quite what this is all about. But the same applies to the
BMW and Merc wagons with their extraordinary prices and questionable practicality. At least the Alfa Sportwagon doesn’t cost the earth at a spit over or under AUD 50,000
depending on whether you choose the conventional manual or press-button Selespeed clutchless transmission. So far there is no automatic option.
Not surprisingly, most of the attractions, and irritations, of the 156 carry over to this compact wagon. It handles beautifully, the ride is well above
average and very quiet, and the styling is certainly very distinctive - classic maybe, for a wagon.
But this is no wagon in the load-lugger sense. No, this is a sort of hatch with more room for Rover - even when Rover’s a Rotty called Fluffy.
If your pooch must have a leather lined kennel on wheels, then you’d better visit your Alfa dealer right now. So serious are Alfa about this that
there’s even a webbed pooch retainer separating the rear seats from the kennel region - or maybe it’s to restrain some small load you might manage to squeeze in. I prefer
the idea of it keeping Fluffy in his place.
Not only is this a fairly lousy load carrier, but the back seat is decidedly cramped for leg-room as well - not quite a four-door two seater, but the idea
crossed my mind.
No, this is a car to enjoy two-up; something to own for the sheer driving pleasure it delivers; a car to be seen in.
Forget that there’s barely anywhere to put things like phones, street directories or sunglasses; ignore the absence of cruise control or cup holders. If
you are really clever you might even manage to overlook the daft VDO radio with its stupid pre-set procedures, mini-control buttons and awful reception. No, I’d chuck that
and get a proper one installed with a normal aerial.
Beyond that, it’s a cute device which won’t hurt Alfa’s rising sales one jot. In the first 10 months of this year Alfa sales across Australia were up
from 1220 in 1999 to 1420.
I am not surprised.
However, did any of you catch the Macau Grand Prix that was televised a couple of
weekends ago? One fellow who really got into the action was Niel Poulsen, who was in Macau and brought me back some mementos of the meeting. Macau is an incredible “round
the houses” track, bumpy and twisting, leaving no room for error. Young Indian driver Narain Karthikeyan, the British F3 sensation of this year, was about one second a lap
quicker than anyone else, but blotted his copybook by stuffing his Dallara Mugen Honda into the unforgiving wall. Karthikeyan is having a try-out in an F1 Jaguar next month,
the first Indian to ever drive an F1 car. Let’s hope he doesn’t stuff that one in as well, though with the legendary Jaguar reliability, he probably won’t get enough
laps in to come to grief.