Not Sold On The Selespeed
by David Finlay (24 May 01)

Just over four months after its UK launch, the Alfa 147 range expands on June 15 to take in five-door body styles, and gives buyers the chance to specify the two-litre version with a normal manual gearbox rather than Selespeed sequential transmission.

None of this affects the fact that the original 1.6-litre Turismo three-door is still the entry-level car at £13,175, but the range is now topped by the two-litre Selespeed five-door at £17,840, or £500 more than its three-door equivalent.

The extra doors, whose handles are hidden from view as they are in the 156, mean that access to the back seat is not as difficult in the new cars as it was in the existing ones. But the 147 is still a car which seems (very much in the Alfa Romeo tradition, of course) to have been designed round the driver and whoever is sitting alongside. From the centre pillar backwards the most important thing about the car appears to be its shape, with everything else crammed in to suit.

From the outside, the 147 looks as if it should be cramped in the back, and it is. Back seat passengers do not seem to have much of a view, and they don't. Rearward visibility does not look as if it will be very good, and it isn't. The shape of the tail suggests that you may not be able to fit in much luggage, and you can't. Up front, by contrast, there is a lot of space. This is not the most practical of hatchbacks, though presumably this does not concern the "youthful urbanites" at whom Alfa says it is pitching the car.

CARkeys representation at the international press launch was in the hands of other parties, but having now driven a substantial number of 147s on UK roads I'm bound to agree with Malcolm Baylis's opinion that the 1.6-litre car is the one to go for. It may have less power than the two-litre (120bhp against 150) but the Twin Spark engine is lively enough, and the handling is immeasurably better.

Identity Crisis

The two-litre, in contrast, is one of those Alfas which seems to have thrown the suspension department into confusion. It feels like it does not know whether it wants to be a sports car or a cruiser. Despite trying everything I knew, I could not make it settle down in the bends, which meant that a single movement of the steering wheel at the start of a corner was usually followed by up to half a dozen others as I tried to second-guess which way the car would go next.

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