Alfa Romeo GT 1.9 JTDm 16v

...are not a fan of Alfa Romeo, the rest of my family, that is my father and uncle have been long standing customers and enthusiasts of the famous Italian marque. I however never really saw the appeal of Fiat badge engineered Alfa's, finding the whole image here, all that glorious pedigree nonsense, a little puzzling.

Our company has owned dozens of them (literally) over the years, as part of what is referred to as a "user chooser" ...
...less to run than an Alfa Romeo of the same size and initial price.

However I do like to consider myself as objective as possible when it comes to test driving and then purchasing a car, I know what I like and sometimes some surprising brands actually provide it. Very often it is when you have pre-conceived ideas of what a product will be like that it serves up the biggest surprise.

Rewind to the summer of last year, ... more

I have this long held opinion that you either are or are not a fan of Alfa Romeo, the rest of my family, that is my father and uncle have been long standing customers and enthusiasts of the famous Italian marque. I however never really saw the appeal of Fiat badge engineered Alfa's, finding the whole image here, all that glorious pedigree nonsense, a little puzzling.

Our company has owned dozens of them (literally) over the years, as part of what is referred to as a "user chooser" fleet - i.e. the drivers choose their own cars up to a given budget. This may be viewed by some as a useful incentive when it comes to employing a certain calibre of staff, as far as the company is concerned it has been a very expensive policy.

Quite simply, some cars cost far more to run than others. For example an executive size BMW saloon is going to cost you or your business a whole heap less to run than an Alfa Romeo of the same size and initial price.

However I do like to consider myself as objective as possible when it comes to test driving and then purchasing a car, I know what I like and sometimes some surprising brands actually provide it. Very often it is when you have pre-conceived ideas of what a product will be like that it serves up the biggest surprise.

Rewind to the summer of last year, anyone who has read my recent car reviews will know that my wife and I are lucky enough to get to attend an event called Company Car in Action at the Millbrook Testing Ground in Bedfordshire each year. If like me you are a car enthusiast, this place is like a kid's playground, nearly all manufacturers are after the fleet (company car) business and this is the place they showcase their latest products each year. It is a little like a motor show, except here, in the complete safety of a closed, test track, environment you get to drive as many cars as you choose to in the day. In practical terms this usually amounts to between 12 and 14 different cars, all driven back to back on the same routes on the same day.

The facilities offered at this establishment are superb. In an 8 mile test drive here, you have covered different road conditions, surfaces, corners and hills that in ordinary daily driving you would need 1000's of miles behind the wheel to experience. Some of the course is pretty extreme too, the hill route throws at you hairpins and 1 in 4 hills that you would need to travel to Scotland, the Lakes or Wales to find.

Here at Millbrook you very quickly are able to come to a valid conclusion as to liking a car or not, the whole experience every year splits the cars into two sharp groups, those that are any good and those that are not. Driving here there are remarkably few cars on sale that fall into a middle ground, maybe the only exceptions being the people carriers which are totally unsuited to the hill route, but that is another issue……

……I'm going to keep you guessing just a little longer as to which camp the brand new Alfa Romeo GT 1.9 JTD falls into.

By the time we got around to visiting the Alfa Romeo stand we had already driven a truly amazingly diverse range of cars, from a 6.0 litre W12 Volkswagen Phaeton right through to a 1.3 litre Fiat Panda, all of which you can read about elsewhere.

Firstly, what exactly is an Alfa Romeo GT 1.9 JTD 1.9?

Well like all other Alfas it is a badge engineered Fiat. It does not look like any current Fiat model for sure but behind anything that is visual or styled this car is pure Fiat to the core. Is that a bad thing? Probably not entirely no, but then the Stilo on which this car is heavily based does not exactly set the world on fire in its own market sector.

The last Alfa I drove here was a 147, as already mentioned I have never been a fan of the marque, although many of them have passed through the company fleet, indeed an Alfa Spider is still languishing there. At that time we still had a GTV Coupe on the fleet - this cars' predecessor, I came to Millbrook and tried a five cylinder Fiat Coupe, unsurprisingly the Fiat proved to be a far more agreeable drive.

This was the first new Alfa GT to be seen in the metal, gunmetal in colour, the styling is certainly unique. The stretched coupe body looks decidedly odd, especially the extra long doors. As you open the very heavy frameless door the window glass drops an inch to clear the rubber seal, neatly depositing a substantial amount of rainwater just where you are about to sit.

Inside is a very typical Alfa interior, dark and cheap looking, especially the dashboard which is cutaway in front of the passenger giving this the feel of a small supermini rather than that of a mid-range saloon based car. In front of the driver sits the twin deeply coweled instruments, something of an Alfa trademark. Our car was a basic specification model, adding to the low rent feel and appearance were the coarse black cloth covered seats, I imagine that £1200 spent on tan leather could work wonders in here.

Interestingly from launch the Alfa comes with a choice of three engines, two of which, a 1.9 litre and a 2.4 litre are four and five cylinder diesels. The sole (current) petrol model is the evergreen 2.0 Twinspark unit, badged as the JTS. Being a fleet day, Alfa had only actually brought along a brace of 1.9 JTD's to try.

Strangely the fine engine was actually the highlight of this car, more than doing the GT image justice. Somehow Alfa's engineers have succeeded in tuning the engine and exhaust system to sound much more like a traditional petrol powered Alfa Twin Cam unit than a diesel. It had, unlike any other Alfa I have driven, a good spread of low down torque too, better in this respect I think than the 2.2 litre diesel unit in our own Honda.

Due to the restricted glass area, rain and fairly poor windscreen wipers, this was an intimidating car to drive around the car park. Sitting on a wet seat does not put you in the best frame of mind either. If you are an ex-army tank driver you would probably feel quite at home in one of these, for the rest of us mere mortals driving one will equate to being a slave to fashion. Small windows lead to a cramped, dark feeling interior, but worse huge blind spots make this a nightmare car to drive around town in.

Things improved a little on the hill route where you really only need to see forward. Unfortunately there were no surprises in terms of ride and handling, this course never did suit Alfa's, the GT crashing and banging over the surface imperfections just like others driven in previous years. There was not anything actually wrong with the ride or handling, merely the amount of noise coming back into the interior through the suspension. It had by far the heaviest steering of the day too, a feature that you would get used to but find tiring around the town.

The brakes, which in nearly all of the other cars failed to raise mention, on the day they just worked, were also a negative point in the Alfa. Yes they stopped the car, and slowed you from speed too, but like the steering were heavy and "dead" in feel, not inspiring a lot of confidence when you needed it.

At 100 mph, a speed which it attained with consummate ease, the wind noise was intolerable. That and a cacophony of rattles and bangs from the suspension and various interior fittings, would rule it out as any form of practical long distance transport. There are doubtless many who will buy it purely on style alone, some for the badge, but for the rest of us who require a refined long distance company car; this simply would not be considered an option.

You may remember from my previous reviews, we approach any car driven from the same rather specific perspective. That being, would we (my wife and I) choose to cover the 2,500 mile round trip to her parent's home in south eastern Poland and back. This may indeed sound like an extreme test to many, but for us it is a way of life, twice a year - summer and Christmas - we complete this journey. We are not alone; we have met others of "international marriage" on our route bound for the Ukraine and Czech Republic, all of whom also travel at least twice a year. Remarkably, up to our purchasing a Honda last year, the thing that all of us had in common was that we were driving Vauxhalls!

Of course others use lots of different cars to travel across Europe in, in Poland Alfa Romeo is a very common brand of car and yet never have I seen an English registered one out there, that I think may explain my conclusion!

Drive to Poland in an Alfa GT? I'm sorry but I think on THEIR motorway surfaces it would not arrive in one piece, the passenger and driver certainly wouldn't!

END NOTE:

If you, like me, like the 'sound' (sorry for the awful pun!) of the engine here - but not the car - you're in luck!

I forgot to put in my review above that the very same 150bhp 1.9 litre (Fiat designed and built) engine is available in a veriety of other cars - some with surprising badges.

Most of the current Vauxhall range offer it, including Signum, Vectra and now the new Astra.

If you can't stand the idea of a Vectra, and frankly who'd blame you, then the very same engine (and six speed gear box) can also be had in the Saab 9-3.
 

...less