A brace of new Alfas launched
30 May 2000: by Brian Byrne.
If the British weren't so British, Fiat Auto Ireland wouldn't have such a magnificent place to launch their Alfa Romeo cars as Lucan House. It seems that the owners, while renting it to the Italian Embassy as a residence for the ambassador in the late ’40s, put it up for sale.
The story goes that they first offered it to the British for a residence, but our neighbouring island's Foreign Office finally said 'no' because it was part of the Sarsfield family holdings, and it might not be seemly for His Majesty's representative to live in a former Fenian's home. The Italians, then in possession anyway, had no such worries, and for that reason HE Dottore Ferdinando Zezza today lives in one of the most desirable ambassadorial 'des reses' in Dublin.
And for the third time in two years, he threw it open for yet another Alfa launch, this time a brace of variations on the 156 theme - the 1.6-litre version and a brand new Sportwagon (we're not allowed to call it an estate, on pain of being banished forever from Lucan House's Liffeyside lawn acres).
In such surroundings, it is probably not possible to see a car in a bad light, particularly as the good Dottore also seemed to have some influence higher up than his government and the sun shone brilliantly until it was time to eject us after lunch. And I've no intention of criticising the cars until (and maybe not even then) I've had a chance to properly drive them.
But there's a fair bit to say nevertheless.
The 1.6-litre engine is a 120bhp unit already familiar in smaller Alfas which are awaiting rebirth, and uses the Twin Spark technology that has long been an Alfa trademark. The commercial reasons for putting it into the 156 are that it gives the marque access to the 'user-chooser' end of the fleet market and the distributors here reckon that's worth an extra 1,000 units a year in a segment where they've not been significant before. In Ireland, the 1.6-litre segment of fleet-buying is almost 40% of the 80,000 such cars which will be sold in this year's 250,000 total market.
While the obvious question is whether bringing in a cheaper and less powerful 156 will 'devalue' the more powerful ones, Fiat Auto Ireland CEO Nicola Greco doesn't believe this will happen. "If it was the other way round, and we had started with a 156, there might be such a difficulty," he told me. "But we have already positioned our higher-level 156s well in their segment, and now we're adding a level to that."
The 1.6-litre car is directly aimed at the BMW 316, and marketing director Jeff Culkin is expecting that up to 70% of sales will be of a higher-priced 'sport' version. He points to a value differential, where the Alfa will start at £18,200 while the Beemer costs £25,300. "For the price of a Passat, for instance, we're offering a car which is already in the prestige class."
The new Sportwagon is something else, and is designed to set a niche of its own. The Alfa people here admit to being unsure about just how it will perform in sales terms, but it's an optimistic unsureness. "The fastest growth area in Europe in the class is the estate variant," says Jeff Culkin. "And within that, the really greatest growth is occurring in the prestige segment."
Alfa are marketing the Sportwagon - which shares engines and running gear with the standard 156, without the 1.6 option as yet - as a 'vehicle which can cross boundaries'. The marketing slogan on the billboard campaign reflects that: 'Life Support Machine'. Its targets are the Audi A3 Avant and the BMW 316 Touring, and certainly in style terms it leaves both of those standing ... the skill of the stylists in maintaining the very distinctive 156 lines has to be highly commended.
From a capacity point of view, the Sportwagon has a larger boot than the Audi and gives about the same cubicage as the Beemer.
It looks like a taker in Europe anyway, as in the short time since it was launched, they've had to revise their forecasts from 20% of total 156 sales to 40% in the Italian market.
Alfa's residual values here were always a sore point with customers. Nicola Greco says it is as yet too soon to see what difference the 156 - which has in sales terms been totally responsible for the marque's turnaround - will show. "But we do have an indicator in the residuals which have been set by the leasing companies," he says, "which for the 156 are higher than Alfa has ever before achieved."
And so, a few brief impressions from the short launch day drives. The 1.6-litre may well be the junior power unit in the range, and it has a fairly substantial car to pull, but it does so reasonably well. It is fortunate that one is encouraged to rev Alfa engines freely, to hear their traditional 'song', because it seems to need the boot to give a satisfactory feeling of boost. That said, it also felt like a very comfortable long-distance cruiser on a piece of motorway I drove on. The other characteristics of the 156 range - pleasing ride and roadholding among them - are all here, and the car is well specified in safety and comfort terms.
The Sportwagon - I drove the 1.8-litre version - seemed equally satisfactory, albeit the roads around Neilstown and the rest of the West Dublin sprawl were not quite the places to get the most fun out of the vehicle. I wait a longer acquaintance with interest.
Sportwagon prices, by the way, range £22,900-£27,500.
