Alfa 156 2.5 is a desirable vehicle for little sins

In my experience, all Alfa Romeos are flawed. Usually in the ergonomics area, when it has often seemed from the way they locate relative seat/visual/control elements that they use monkeys as the physical template for a driver.

Then they produced the 145 series, and the monkey must have been on holidays, because in this area they got fairly right.

With the 156 the monkey's back on the payroll, it seems. Because to get the steering wheel at the correct and comfortable angle (for a human) it has to be lowered to a point where it obscures the top halves of the two main dials. Necessitating the learning of half-needle angles vis a vis speed and revs if you depend on instruments to inform you of either.

Want to hear the rest of my gripes?

OK ... None.

That's it - there are NONE. This car, in the format I drove - the 2.5-litre top of the range - most richly deserves its title of European Car of the Year 1998. And it took me all of 20 yards of driving to realise it, when I felt and heard the engine strut and sing the unwritten opera that is the art of Alfa.

Indeed, I made a mental note that if I was ever going to drive myself into trouble, this was the car in which I was going to do it.
(Speed gardai are very active in my neck of the woods, and though I know them all it wouldn't do me any good if they caught me doing what this 156 begged to do. And the fire-engine red in which it was decked wouldn't have helped make me in any way as inconspicuous as I normally prefer to be.)
However, I DIDN'T get into trouble (sorry for those of you disappointed). And I still had a lot of fun, without much needling beyond the limits.

So there is a place for a powerful Alfa even in today's Ireland.

The car in style is a celebration of the car builder 's craft. From the trademark shield nose to the horizontal sculpts of the tail-lights, it is a distinctive interpretation of a modern sports saloon. One which could be easily mistaken for a coupe, thanks to a clever hidden rear doorhandle idea.

Nice one, Alfa. All the room of a big saloon and the look of a sports car without the drawbacks of that latter.

The stylists also chose a little bit of asymmetry in order to emphasise the car's Alfaness ... the front numberplate is offset to the left rather than compromise the size of the shield radiator look they wanted. In countries where a front numberplate is not required, this car will show at its full-frontal best.

From the side there's an equally uncompromising slab-sided attitude, ever so slightly sculpted to rake the outline a little without allowing any fiddly bits to disturb a shape which looks as if it was handcrafted.

Inside there is no doubt that the driver is king. And yet, as a saloon, it has more than adequate space for passengers used to being chauffeur-driven.

But the driver's domain has retro details such as individual subsidiary dials set in the centre console and angled so that only the driver can read them. (None of the passenger's business, after all.)
And though they no longer include the pre-war essentials of oil temperature and pressure, for instance, just showing engine temperature, time and fuel level, it feels good. As does the wooden gearknob, which allows an unsweatily sensual stirring of cogs. Six speeds, by the way, and the shift responds to a sense of authority.

(The monkey was out to a banana-split when they did the central console, because the height and the angles are spot-on. As too are the radio and climate-control positions. Though he came back in to provide a rather tacky and ill-advised central air-distribution grille.)
And though the 190bhp output in this version meant that cogs needed little enough stirring to move the car well, one did so a lot to get the most of the engine's push-in-the-back and magnificent song while still remaining inside the speed limits redline.

Where traffic conditions permit, you can do the 0-60mph in this in 7.4 seconds. No public road here will permit the 150mph-plus potential.

There are lots of unseen high-tech ideas in this car ... an electronic accelerator linkage, lots of use of tough magnesium and light aluminium, a fire-prevention system, variable-code immobiliser, and a suspension system that manages to cope very well with getting that power on the road in a civilised manner.

That suspension also provides very crisp handling under even very difficult conditions, and when brakes have to be used they are managed by a very sophisticated ABS and electronic brake distribution system.

But above all, there's something that no writer can adequately put into words on a page. It is not possible, I think, to properly describe the magic of driving a car like this. Suffice to say that the 156 2.5-litre fulfills all the needs of an Alfa buff's soul. Yet it is as civilised as the most restrained of ambassadors might require.

I never was an Alfa buff in the true sense. Truth told, I still am not. But I did love driving this car, and related to it as well as I did to the 145 2-litre some time back.

I probably couldn't live with it, though, for long. I really would be unable to resist the temptations it offers.

I simply can't afford the cost of speeding tickets I would inevitably attract.

But if you CAN resist such temptations (talk about restrained!) or have somewhere discreet to occasionally indulge yourself, spend what seems an exceptionally modest £27,000 on this eminently desirable and satisfying occasion of sin.

(Retire the monkey, guys. If he won't go, there are people in Sicily with violin cases ...)

- Brian Byrne.

ALFA 156 REVIEWS

A brace of new Alfas (May 00) - Brian Byrne

Style never went out of fashion (Aug 00) - Tony Conlon

Alfa's anti-estate (Nov 00) - Gerry Boud

Alfa 156 2.5 is a desirable vehicle for little sins (Apr 98) - Brian Byrne

Beauty and the Best (Nov 00) - Gerry Boud