29th Sep 2007, 11:53
"Cars that are perfect are just boring, the Alfa has soul & character"
LOL that's your opinion, you're entitled to it, I personally wouldn't like going through a set of front tires every week, and I do like being able to accelerate around corners and I like being able to sell my car without losing to much money. Three of the many reasons I avoided the nasty Alfa.
4th Oct 2007, 15:48
Guys... please lets not stoop to the level of this guy who prob drives a BMW or equivalent boring car! This person has obviously never owned or experienced an ALfa! Out of all the hot hatches I would choose the Alfa. I own an Alfa they are amazing cars to hear, look at and to drive! Fair enough you may be beaten around a track, but I know which car will put the biggest smile on your face and it certainly ain't one coming from Germany or France!
5th Oct 2007, 12:28
The Alfa 147 gta was so bad they stopped making it. They started making it mid-production, and then stopped making it again. You can still buy a new 147, but you can't buy a new 147 GTA because they stopped making it; that's how much of a flop it was.
8th Oct 2007, 06:24
'The Alfa 147 gta was so bad they stopped making it.'
In your opinion. Alfa never said that.
I would say the reason they ceased production would be to keep them rare & exclusive. And in future will be a bit of a classic.
8th Oct 2007, 12:16
Car companies don't care about if the cars become classic or if they are rare; all they care about is making money just like any other business. If they aren't making money on them, they stop wasting time and think of something else.
Hardly anyone would buy a 147 gta over a Focus RS, Golf r32 and Civic Type R, which is why the sales of the 147 gta were so pathetic. If the car was a big success and they were out selling all of their rivals, do you seriously think they would have stopped making them? I don't.
9th Oct 2007, 07:32
'If they aren't making money on them they stop wasting time and think of something else.'
Alfa have been losing money on all their cars, but Fiat haven't stopped wasting their time with them!
15th Oct 2007, 12:37
Didn't Clarkson say he would have one over the RS, and the R32...oh and it's been mentioned that the GTA is the king of hot hatches! OK, it might be faster on a track, but on every day roads the GTA would simply wooop ass! Fair play you don't like Alfa's! Like it or not, the GTA is an awesome car, and if you're going by facts, with the exception of yours, the reviews on this site that I've just read would suggest it's a bloody good car!
16th Oct 2007, 11:57
Read the reviews on whatcar.com, both by car journalists and owners. They all say awful car, and too much power for front wheel drive.
17th Oct 2007, 16:11
What car LOL... nuff said really, it's aimed at the average consumer, Alfa's are not for the average consumer! Mercedes are one of the worst companies around, and far worse for reliability than Alfa are, but people seem to overlook them! Never seen a rotten E-class have you - that would be because every 5 years they rot so badly Mercedes re-spray them! I've not seen a rusty Alfa since 1984!
Have you ever driven a GTA? So you don't like deep hand stitched leather seats, the stylish dash board, the chrome engine pipes, they V6 engine note, the way it looks. My friend had a Focus RS, I took him into the showroom... now he drives a GTA. A Civic Type R driver that I know, also took a GTA for a spin... he also has a GTA now! But then again I'm glad the common don't like Alfa Romeo's to be honest, so your more than welcome to hate them all you want, your loss! - I'm not having a pop so please don't get offended, that's not my intention at all!
8th Nov 2007, 04:42
The Italians make, and have always made fabulously styled cars with beautiful engines. In these respects, no BMW, Audi or Mercedes can match them.
Alfa have made strides in quality in recent years, but in all honesty are not up to the standards of the Germans yet. But I would argue they run the Germans closer on quality than the Germans run the Italians on style.
An Alfa is a thing of beauty. A BMW, Mercedes (SL apart) or Audi is not. Even the fabulous new R8 which is an incredibly capable car just doesn't tug at the heart strings. You would respect it massively, but would you ever love it?
Which you buy depends on what kind of person you are. Are you logical or emotional? Does soul matter? Are you a capable enough driver to extract the final nth of ability from your German car and leave the Alfa standing? Do you gain more from those moments than an Alfa driver gains 99% of the rest of the time just from being in something so evocatively styled and so mechanically soulful? I suspect I know the answer, but each to their own of course.
An M3 would wipe the floor with my 156 GTA, but do I care? No. The GTA makes my neck hairs stand up every time I fire it up, and makes me feel good just by smelling the leather or admiring its sheer beauty every time I polish it. To me that's worth a second off the 0-60 time and doors that clunk shut because for all their engineering prowess, it's something the Germans simply cannot do. Style, passion and beauty aren't things you achieve with a calculator and a Tefal haircut. They're not things you can learn at engineering school. They're not things that even exist in the vocabulary of the German automotive industry, but the Italians have always had them, all of them in fact, in spades.
When all is said and done, I actually couldn't give a monkeys what anyone else thinks of my choice. The Alfa has been reliable, if not faultless, and is a sheer joy to own and to drive. I find myself glancing back at it after I park it sometimes, and it makes me feel good to come out of the house in the morning and find it there. To hear the bark of that peerless V6 as it fires up, and the burble and gentle popping from the tailpipe on the overrun. Soul. It's great stuff!
27th Sep 2007, 15:36
"To be a true hot hatch it doesn't have to be quick round a track"
Erm yes it does. There are lesser models i.e the 1.6 liter with 5 doors or whatever that are designed for practicality. The idea of the hot version is to be ermmmm hot, hence the name hot hatch. The Alfa falls way below the standard of the Focus RS, fact. Any car journalist would tell you the Alfa isn't a hot hatch, it's a poorly designed car with a poor chassis, a poor front wheel drive system and they have just stuck a big engine in it without any forward planning of how it was going to put the power down, or how it was going to be able to accelerate out of a bend. Things that a hot hatch should do, it can't do, so it isn't a hot hatch, it's a poor car with a big engine, end of discussion.