This week’s test vehicle is the Alfa
Romeo 156, a car about as Italian as pizza, spaghetti, Mario
Lanza and cappuccino. As if just to remind me where the car
was designed, the test 156 also came in red hot Italian racing
red, with a black and tan leather interior, which looked at
first glance as if it had used half a herd of Jersey cows. The
inside simply moo’s.
Alfa
Romeo 156
There was no getting away from it, the 156
Alfa drew looks. Half of the attraction is the shape and I
believe the other half was the colour. The retro-look grille
even looks good too, reminding one of the fine heritage that
is Alfa Romeo, not that the young ladies who would frantically
call out, "Hello sexy man!" were interested in
history, but rather in the wallet large enough to buy this
vehicle. Unfortunately for them, the one they were calling out
to was a test vehicle on loan from Thai Prestige Auto Sales,
the local distributors of Alfa Romeo, and my wallet did not
have the requisite 1.83 million baht to call the Alfa mine.
Good cars have a personality, which is what
takes some marques from the boring ranks of basic
transportation through to being enjoyable ways to get from A
to B. If for you, driving is an art form, then Alfa Romeo is
one marque you should consider. Nobody can question the
lineage. This is a company that has been making sporting cars
for over 90 years and almost every racing driver whose name
has ended in an "i" has scored impressive victories
on race tracks in Europe (Ramponi, Campari, Nuvolari, Enzo
Ferrari and even a Czarist called Ivanowski, for example).
The 156 does have personality. In the short
time she was with me, Angie Alfa began to seduce me. What
other car has a pillbox creation on top of the dash that
leaves you messages? Angie told me on our first drive from
Bangkok that I should slow down as I only had winter tyres
fitted, looking after me like a lover would. Then one morning
when I had to return home to pick up a forgotten cheque she
told me the brake fluid level was low and/or the handbrake was
on. Having just applied the handbrake, I ignored her, went
indoors and retrieved the cheque. Jumping back in, I began
driving off again, when Angie left me another note, rather
scary in its understanding of me. The bright red letters
spelled out "Check OK" and I was stunned. I was
thinking at that moment whether I could cash the cheque that
morning! Did Angie have ESP as well? Of course, the doubters
amongst you would assume that the "Check OK" message
related to the handbrake/fluid level - but I know Angie!
The 156s in this country have the Twin
Spark 2 litre engine, which is adequate, but the corral is
certainly not bursting with horses. However, the horses that
are there are very willing, and the engine spins up to the
7,000 rpm red-line very quickly. Drive is through the front
wheels, but there is no torque reaction to remind you which
end of the vehicle is actually doing the driving.
The transmission is what Alfa Romeo call
their Selespeed, coyly referring to it as having technology
from Formula 1, playing on the fact that the parent body for
both Alfa and Ferrari is Fiat. The allusion between Michael
Schumacher’s Eff Wun Fazza and Angie Alfa is merely an
illusion, let me tell you. While it was not a difficult
clutch-less transmission to get used to, with its paddles on
the steering wheel to change gear, or the sequential joystick
on the tunnel, or the "City" button for automatic
style changes, I found its changes were slow and cumbersome.
Even if it did produce lovely vroom-vroom noises on
downshifts. However, if you are not adept with heel-toe and
double declutching, then perhaps the Selespeed is for you.
Since as a driver, you spend most of your
time behind the wheel, it is important that the car be
tailored to suit the driver, and I found the Alfa was very
good in this regard. The wheel placement, the relationship
between pedals and seat, and the sighting of the instruments
in the main binnacle were excellent. In fact, all the gauges
were very easy to read, especially the all important
tachometer, though the modern electronics will not let you
over-rev the engine as it will over-ride your command and
shift up at the top end of the red-line. The only really
hidden item was the stalk with the cruise control, but since I
personally dislike cruise control, this was no great loss from
my point of view.
In some sporty cars driven recently, I have
criticised the driver’s chair as not having the lateral
support that should be expected, if the suspension is good
enough to allow you to indulge yourself on the corners. I
cannot say that about the Alfa 156 - the driver’s seat is
firm, grippy and has great lateral support. Almost as good as
a fully fledged race seat. This is probably one of the best
road car seats around. Brilliant work, Alfa. Even the leather
didn’t get sweaty, a fact that often puts me off the cowhide
chairs.
Talking about getting sweaty gets me to the
air-conditioning. Yes it worked. Yes it is a split system so
you can set the temperatures to one’s own liking on either
side of the car, but the controls which were a mixture of
rotary dials, push buttons and ideograms were fiddly and not
user friendly, well at least not for this user. I also had
problems with it misting up the windscreen, which brought me
back to the fiddly dials and made me grumpy with my Angie. But
then, she would let me snuggle back in her arms, in that
beautiful seat, and the world was fine again.
And while having a whinge about controls,
the radio was impossible. Fiddly, tiny push buttons that my
large fingers could not cope with. Imagine a very small volume
knob split into three sections, with each bit doing a
different job. Bring back rotary knobs and KISS (Keep It
Simple Stupid).
Styling is always a subjective concept, but
the majority of people who see the 156 love it immediately.
The shape (and the colour) certainly reeks of class. I
particularly loved the treatment for the rear doors, which
look as if they have no protruding door handles, with the
opening latch being hidden in the rear of the window frame.
Having said that, why did the Alfa people continue with the
old fashioned chrome handles on the front doors? The effect of
the uncluttered flanks would have been so much better if they
had done away with the exterior handles on the front doors as
well. On a side view there is also a distinct similarity
between the Alfa and the new Mazda RX8, or maybe it’s just
the back doors without handles.
There was no fussiness exhibited while
driving, even first thing in the morning, the only
sluggishness was mine! Getting back to the transmission, I
found the "City" automatic shifts were slow and
jerky, and it was much better if I did all the shifting
manually myself. There is no clutch, so you don’t even have
to remember to declutch when stopping.
The car is certainly a sporting chariot to
drive. It feels taught, it feels secure and does stick to the
road. It is not as firm a ride as the BMW 330 or accelerate
nearly as hard, but it does also cost appreciably less (1.8
versus 3.5 mio). The steering is precise, brakes (anti-lock
braking system of course) are excellent and the package is a
good one. For me the only disappointments are in the outright
grunt department and I would prefer a manual, rather than the
Selespeed - but then that is my preference with any sporty
car.
Our down-under correspondent John Weinthal
has been testing the 156 GTA, while I had the 156 in Thailand.
The GTA version has the all-new 182 kW 3.2 litre V6 and will
accelerate to 100 kph in just 6.3 seconds. It also comes with
a 6 speed manual gearbox. However, it is almost twice the
price of the ‘standard’ 156.
With the 156 coming on the market under 2 million baht
means that it does not have many rivals in the Euro-car field,
as most are well over the 2 million barrier. For the Alfisti,
this is a car to lust after and for the sporting motorist,
this has to be one of the vehicles to be looked at seriously.
