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Alfa Romeo 166
Do a word association exercise with the name Alfa Romeo and what comes to mind is sporty cars - not little cars, but certainly not your BMW/Mercedes and dare we say it Holden/Ford BIG cars. So when we picked up the new 166 from Alfa Romeo Australia it was difficult to suppress the thought that Alfa have persisted with the large flagship model just so they can claim to cover the range. And of all the Alfas the top-of-the-range 166 is the least recognisable and probably the least seen as well. 'Sensible' money at this end of the market almost always plumps for the BMW/Mercedes option or perhaps the Audi. But - being an Alfa driver is not necessarily all about being sensible. First impressions - the way the car looks - we have to admit to really liking it. The test car was a bronze colour with dark grey leather upholstery and looked the bee's knees. It is weird though getting into the car and realising you are driving the serious Alfa - big and bouncy compared to the other models' harder suspension and ride. Inside of course the plush leather upholstery and sheer amount of space reinforces the impression of a superior mode of transport. The engine is a 3 litre 4 speed attached to an automatic gearbox. This acts as a standard automatic most of the time but is what Alfa call 'Sportronic' which means if you push the shift over to the left it then acts as a sports gearbox and delays upshifts to get the most out of the engine. In Sportronic mode if you then flick the shift up or down it converts to something more like Selespeed where - from that point on - you must change gear manually. Shifting back to standard mode by pushing the shift to the right puts you back into regular automatic. In Sportronic the 166 is very impressive - very quick off the mark with plenty of power to take you up to and way past the speed limit - in fact it almost delays upshifts to the point where you are wondering if the system is working and during the test we often just shifted up for it rather than wait. Technically the fact that the gearbox is 4-speed puts it at a disadvantage against most other cars in this segment with 5 or sometimes 6 speeds. To be honest we noticed it but that was it - it certainly did not reduce the enjoyment of driving the car. Really the only area where we were disappointed with the 166 was in the extras, or rather the lack of them: the GT we drove immdeiately prior to the 166 was in many ways better equipped than the flagship. We understand the reasons - the GT is an entirely new car whereas the 166 is a facelift of an existing model, but it was still disappointing not to have a decent 10CD changer (only 6 in the 166) and a reversing sensor. The GT has one but we think the 166 actually needs it more due to the high rear end. Another slight disappointment was lack of satellite navigation in the 166 - the European model comes fully equipped with this but due to incompatibility with the Australian satnav network (developed by rival BMW in Australia) this function is simply not available on the 166. Having had an opportunity to use satnav in the UK it is a real shame it is not available on the Alfa flagship. Other features of the 166 onbard system though are great - we particularly liked the built-in phone. All you need to do is plug in a SIM card (must be the full size credit card type) and you have an instant car phone. Everything else about the 166 was great - plenty of boot space, it's easy to fit a child seat in the back (anchor point is right behind the head restraint) and just a really comfortable and elegant way of getting around. The Xenon headlights also make night driving a breeze.
So our verdict. As we always say at this point - do not come to ItalianCar looking for an unbiased comparison with all other (non Italian) cars. It also bears mentioning at this point - if you didn't already know - that the god of car journalism (Jeremy Clarkson) featured the 166 as one of only 20 or so machines with 'soul' in his recent book "I Know You Got Soul". We have to agree with his (implied) verdict that the 166 is the car you buy if you want to stand out from the crowd but don't want to show off unneccessarily. At around $85K ($92K on the road) it is around $20K cheaper than the equivalent base model BMW (530i) that you would have to add around $10K of options to to get to the same spec. We guess resale value of the 166 would decline a lot more than with the BMW - but hey - you saved about $30K at purchase anyway.
For more information on the 166 and a complete run-down check our FACTfile. Here are some more facts and figures on this great looking car -
In summary
Car driven: Alfa 166 3.0l Sportronic 4-speed
© 2005 italiancar 24/07/05
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