LAUNCH REPORT:

Alfa GT review

by David Finlay (29 March 2004)

The Alfa GT is described by its makers as "a true Gran Turismo sports coupé in the classic Alfa Romeo tradition". Well, that should keep us going for a while.

A little technical background first, though. The GT is based on the 156 saloon, and its more purposeful shape is the result of a collaboration between Bertone and Alfa Romeo's own Centro Stile. Alfa's proud boast is that the design still offers "full four-seater accomodation with substantial luggage space", and this is by no means an idle claim. There is certainly a lot of room for front seat passengers, and in coupé terms the boot volume is pretty useful at 320 litres, extending to 905 litres with the rear seats folded down. Intermediate figures can be achieved by making use of the 60/40 seat folding option.

A full four-seater, though? Well, it would be possible to carry four adults as long as they were medium-sized and tolerant and you weren't trying to take them very far. There isn't a great deal of room in the rear, though there's unquestionably a lot more than you would find in some other coupés.

The interior design is indeed classic Alfa, with one exception - you no longer need to have short legs and long arms in order to be able to drive the thing. This is still a minus point in, for example, the 166 saloon, and it's good to see that it doesn't apply in the GT, in which most drivers should be able to make themselves comfortable.

The range will eventually start with a 1.8 Twin Spark petrol-engined model, but that won't be along until later this year. For the moment, the engine options are the 1.9 JTD turbo diesel, the two-litre Twin Spark (the only version available with either straightforward manual or electronically-controlled Selespeed transmission) and a 3.2-litre V6.

Within this range there is a sharp demarcation line which makes the V6 worth considering quite separately from the others. Let's start with the four-cylinder models, which are similar in many respects.

They are, for example, fairly close to each other in driving terms. The steering - like the other major controls - feels quite rubbery (a familiar aspect of Alfas across the years) but it works very well. The front end responds very quickly to small inputs, making the GT a car you need to drive with your fingertips if you want to get the best out of it.

The rest of the handling is impressive, too. After many years of producing cars which were quite stiffly set-up, Alfa Romeo now seems to have taken the decision to give even its more sporty models unusually soft springing. That's good news in terms of grip as long as you get the damping right, and the GT suspension is indeed damped very well.

A little more work could be done, though. The GT wanders slightly at the top of crests, and in dips there is a tendency for the front spoiler to scrape against the tarmac. All this was particularly apparent on the launch event route, which took in some of the wilder parts of Caithness and Sutherland at the very top of mainland Britain. In areas where the roads are less challenging I suspect the overall impression will be of a finely set-up chassis.

The soft springing and controlled damping help make the GT ride quite gently, but low-profile tyres do their usual job of passing information about every last bump and undulation in the road surface through to the passenger area. In fact this isn't too much of a problem, and it helps the GT regain some of the sporty feel it may have lost due to the relaxed suspension set-up.

So much for the general trend. The choice of petrol or diesel engines - more specifically their respective weights - determines a few detail differences. The wandering and scraping is more apparent on the diesel, which is also slightly less sharp on turn-in. But despite this I felt that the diesel was by a small margin the better choice on really tough roads thanks to its vastly better mid-range pull. Its maximum power output of 150bhp is only 15bhp short of what the Twin Spark produces, and you in the real world you have to work the Twin Spark a great deal harder to cover the ground as effectively.

"But it's so much fun to work the Twin Spark!" a colleague said when I mentioned this. True, but unless you're able to send the revcounter needle swinging towards the red line the petrol car doesn't feel particularly quick. The JTD (whose maximum torque figure of 225lb/ft is the highest in the GT range) can be made to surge forward at the twitch of a toe, almost regardless of what speed it is doing.

In past years Twin Spark Alfas (and equivalent Fiats) at least had the benefit of sounding absolutely wonderful. The sound effects have now been legislated almost completely out of existence, making it almost impossible to recapture that glorious screaming note, whereas the JTD is one of the most musical four-cylinder diesels I've ever heard, with a pleasantly gruff sound.

As mentioned earlier, the 3.2 V6 is a different matter altogether. It's worth pointing out right now that the car we drove was an Italian-spec model - Alfa Romeo's UK team does not, at the time of writing, have access to a British version, and have not yet been informed of the full specification.

Still, it's unlikely to be dramatically different from the model described here. The engine is the same one found in the GTV, Spider and 166. In this application it produces 240bhp, and although that figure is achieved quite high in the rev range at 6200rpm, the mid-range power (combined with low and close ratios in the six-speed gearbox) helps this most furious of Alfa GTs to be quite docile at low revs.

It won't stay docile if you don't want it to, though. A bootful of throttle produces very strong performance, of which a 0-62mph time of 6.7 seconds should give you a fair idea. The suspension, while a good deal more track-oriented than in the less powerful cars, is still relatively soft, so again grip levels are reasonably high. The front end responds even more sharply and the brakes (four-pot calipers and 330mm discs at the front) are more than adequate to haul off the considerable speed you can achieve in a short distance, though once more they are more effective than they seem to be until you get used to the rubbery feel of the controls.

The V6 is, in a different way from the four-cylinder GTs, a very appealing car, and I reckon it has just as much power as it needs to. The frequency with which the traction control light flickered on and off suggested that the chassis doesn't want to deal with any more than 240bhp. Any further modification to the engine would probably require a rethink of the suspension which might make the car more effective on a race circuit but would seriously compromise its friendly nature on public roads.

Prices range from £20,995 for the JTD through £21,495 and £23,545 for the manual and slightly better-equipped Selespeed versions of the Twin Spark model to £26,695 for the V6. The JTD gets the CARkeys vote for best buy, partly because I thought it was the one I would most like to drive over a long period and partly because it is by an enormous margin the most economical car here. Its combined cycle figure of 42.2mpg, for example, is nearly 10mpg better than the Twin Spark can manage, while the V6 is ten lower still at 22.8mpg.

Several of the optional extras are different sizes and designs of alloy wheels, and it's worth bearing in mind that this list also includes some items which other manufacturers might be more inclined to include in the standard package - passenger seat height adjustment, parking sensors and a CD autochanger are notable examples. Dual zone climate control is standard, though, as is a whole array of driving aids including ABS, EBD, brake assist and Motor Slip Regulation (the last of these being designed to keep the brakes working at maximum efficiency during vigorous down changes).

Fiat/Alfa's CONNECT online telematics system is an option on all GTs and includes a live phone link to an English-speaking operator as well as satellite navigation. The price hasn't been announced yet but will soon be known by Alfa Romeo dealers.

How about that claim we mentioned at the beginning, though? "A Gran Turismo sports coupé in the classic Alfa Romeo tradition," they say. Yes, I'll go along with that.