The new face of an old Italian

Alfa Romeo not only make good cars, but has a great and revered heritage. You'd be hard-pressed to emulate the sort of tradition carried over in each vehicle in a Toyota, for instance, but that's an unfair comparison.

A simple fact of life is that many people buy cars on reputation and Alfa Romeo is one of these car makers. So when the new face of Alfa Romeo was unveiled in Geneva 2002, there was plenty at stake. More than Alfa would like to admit even.

But the public reaction to the new Brera (aka 2004 model GTV) was excellent and the Alfa head honcho - Fiat boss Giancarlo Boschetti, unofficially approved the new design. And so do we.

The new-look GTV, as we'll call it, is first and foremost a performance coupe, though from its profile you'd almost call this a hot hatch. Styled by Italdesign, the raked rear-hatch and stubby end section almost give it a playful look, but cast your eyes further down its scultped body and you'll notice the menace seen in the integrated quad exhaust pipes, finished in chrome for good measure.

The tail-light cluster is almost a carbon copy of the headlight set, with three individual lens contained within a triangular crevice.

From the front, any serious motorist will recognise the traditional Alfa grille plus the new-look headlight cluster is really quite striking and not easily forgettable. With three large air intakes making up the front spoiler, the new GTV certainly looks the part, but what about power?

Well, there's good and bad news. The bad news is that this car is going to be very expensive when it releases in 2004. The good news is that it comes packed with an engine related to Maserati's new V8.

The eight-cylinder mill has a capacity of 4.3-litres and takes advantage of many F1-derived technologies. As such, peak power is a neck-snapping 300kW, so you can expect the new GTV to hit 100km/h in under six seconds. The power is transferred to the bitumen via a slick six-speed sequential transmission, which is located towards the rear of the car, while the engine sits just behind the front axle for an optimum balance ratio. The car is also a rear-wheel driver.

The car on show made use of exotic vertically hingeing doors, a bit like another famous Italian - the Lamborghini. While we've mentioned that the car resembles a hatch from certain angles, it's size contradicts this. At almost 4.4 metres in length and a smidge under 1.9-metres wide, unfortunately this will not be a parallel parker's dream come true.

At its heart, the new GTV is a 2+2 seater coupe, but the rear seats are quoted as being 'nominal'. We believe that means they are small. Very small. But still, there'd be many out there who'd love to shoehorn themselves into the back seat of one of these babies to experience the sheer thrill of a fast Alfa. Now all we have to do is wait for the car to arrive.

The bold new face of one of Italy's oldest car makers is really quite something. It's still an Alfa, but there's just more in there, somehow. Perhaps we'll see other variations of this new theme in future models, but as it stands, the new-look GTV/Brera is one slick piece of machinery. Kudos to Alfa for being different.