Two or three hundred years ago I tried to make a living selling soft toys.
Imagine Graham Norton working on a building site as a hod carrier and you’ll
have some idea of just how bad I was.
God it was a lonely existence. All day I was in the car on my own with nothing
to look forward to except a lonesome dinner and then bed in some godforsaken
provincial hotel, electrocuting myself on the sheets while watching a
regional news programme from a region I’d never head of.
I actually looked forward to asking people for directions just so I could talk
to someone. And at night, in the hotel bar, I’d contravene every fibre of my
Englishness and chat with other reps, even though most of them were
overweight psychotics with sample bags full of severed heads.
As for the job itself, well, it was hell. We all know that the biggest problem
with asking a girl out is that she might say no. We’ve all been there when
the prettiest girl at school says she’d rather go to the pictures with a
sack of manure. Well, that’s what it’s like being a salesman: you lead a
Billy No-mates existence, being rejected eight or 10 times every single day.
Oh, I went on lots of Close that Deal! selling courses run by Americans in
white suits, and I read books on human behaviour, learning that someone’s
eyes are a window to their soul. Breathing is important, too: in order to
build a rapport with the customer you need to match his respiratory
patterns.
And so, armed all this psychobabble, I’d drive hundreds of miles to a toyshop
in Swansea where the conversation would go like this:
“Hello, would you like to buy some of these soft dogs?” “No.”
“Okay.”
And then I would check into the Ivy Bush hotel and watch Welsh news with 4m
volts coursing through my legs.
I know there are good salesmen who really can sell coals to Newcastle. I read
just the other day about a car dealer who invited two Jehovah’s Witnesses
into his house; they left 20 minutes later with a P-reg Ford Mondeo.
And who can forget Swiss Toni from The Fast Show? His philosophy was sublime.
“You have to make the customer think that his is bigger. But, in order to
sell a car to him, you have to know that yours is bigger. You have to keep
telling yourself, ‘I’ve got the biggest todger in the world’.”
But I couldn’t do it. I’d walk into a shop knowing, with absolute certainty,
that the proprietor had wanted to spend the morning selling clackers and
space hoppers, not shooting the breeze with a gawky teenager who was
breathing strangely and looking at his crotch.
Most importantly, though, I knew he wouldn’t want the soft dog, partly because
it was too expensive and partly because it wasn’t soft enough, but mostly
because I’d tucked him up with half a dozen Captain Beakies the previous
year that were still sitting there gathering dust.
This brings me on to the biggest asset a salesman can have. It’s more
important than a Mondeo ST220, a chunky watch and big genitals. It’s more
important than a one-size-fits-all minibar master key or a road map with no
page folds. The single most devastating weapon in a salesman’s armoury is a
decent product.
Selling BMWs, for instance, is the easiest job in the world. Whenever someone
walks through the door of the showroom you know for sure that he isn’t
considering any other make of car.
You know he won’t want a test-drive (it’s said 87% of BMW buyers don’t
bother). And you know that, since he’s buying a Bee Em, your todger is
bigger.
All you have to do is offer a better discount than the BMW dealer in the next
town and the sale is yours.
If you’re selling Audis, however, things are never so clear cut. When a
customer walks through the door his mind is not made up. You need to
reassure him that it’s okay to drive an A4, that his friends won’t laugh or
pull his hair at the squash club.
What’s more, he will want a test-drive. And something on that drive, will
annoy him. It’ll be different in some small way from the car he normally
drives. The clutch will bite at a different point. The indicator stalk will
be on the wrong side. He’ll find the radio fiddly. There will be something.
So you’re not only competing for his business with other Audi dealers. You’re
competing with the enormous pull of that magnetic north known as the BMW
3-series.
Imagine, then, what it must be like for an Alfa Romeo salesman. He’s sitting
there with his dead pot plant in a showroom with the heat turned off to save
money, knowing that nobody will walk through the door. Ever.
If he wants to feed his children on anything more nutritious than butt ends
and stuff from the waste disposal unit he must go out there into the world
and spread the word, knowing full well that nobody will listen.
There’s a given with Alfas: they melt our hearts and our souls, but only the
very foolish will actually spend £25,000 on a car that will go wrong every
day and suffer from supersonic depreciation. They are like Russian hookers:
insanely pretty and willing beyond the ken of man, but you’re going to get a
rash.
The new 147 GTA is a case in point. To sell one there’s no point talking about
finance deals and equipment levels because if anyone’s being rational about
their new car they’re going to buy a Ford Focus RS or, more likely, a VW
Golf R32.
If I were charged with the task of selling Alfas I would offer free coffee,
free money, a free Cameron Diaz, free anything I could think of to get
people into the showroom. Because once they were there, behind the wheel,
they’d succumb. Nothing is more certain.
It’s the padded and stitched tan leather, the drilled pedals, the huge,
body-hugging seats. When you sit in a Focus RS or a Golf R32 it’s like
sitting in a commercial for Lynx aftershave. When you sit in an 147 GTA it’s
like sitting in a Venetian’s hand-made suitcase.
Then, when the customer had had five minutes in there, poking at switches and
changing gear, I’d pull him out, show him the chromed engine and give him
the order form that, if he had even half a heart, he’d sign straight away.
However, I’m not an Alfa salesman, which is why I’m telling you here and now
to stay out of the showroom. Do not climb inside one of these cars. Do not
look at the engine. Put your hands in the air and stay away from the order
form.
The 147 GTA is a mad car. Alfa has taken something that was designed to be a
fun little hatchback buzz bomb and hammered a 3.2 litre V6 under the bonnet.
Only, unlike Volkswagen and Ford, it hasn’t bothered with four-wheel drive
or a clever differential. All the power, all 250bhp of it, is sent directly
to the front wheels.
Now managing 250 overenthusiastic and sporty Italian horses is a hard enough
job on its own, but when you have to do the steering as well it’s
impossible.
So while the bald figures tell you that the GTA can go from 0 to 62mph in
6.3sec, what they don’t tell you is where you end up. Which is back where
you started, having spent the time fighting a losing wrestling match with
the wheel. I thought the Focus RS torque-steered but this is something else.
Eventually, if you’re lucky, the car can be coaxed to go in roughly your
chosen direction of travel, but encounter any bump or dip in the road and,
whoa, you’re back on a wild mustang that has inadvertently spilled some
wasabi on its testicles.
This is one of those cars that can never be persuaded to settle down. It
shouts and waves its arms about and generally behaves like its shirt’s on
fire. Even in sixth, on the motorway with Classic FM on the stereo, you’re
constantly aware of a finger tapping you on the shoulder urging you to drop
it into fourth and live a little.
For 10 minutes it’s a riot but then you start to notice that it doesn’t
handle, ride or grip like a Ford or a VW. And over time it would wear you
out. I don’t know why but it puts me in mind of Sven-Goran Eriksson’s
girlfriend; the one with the red dress and the plunging neckline.
It’s fast, really fast, and £22,500 won’t buy you a better white-knuckle ride.
It also makes a tremendous noise. It’s lovely to behold and inside it’s
genuinely beautiful. But trust me on this — I’m not a salesman. You don’t
want one.
VITAL STATISTICS
Model Alfa Romeo 147 GTA
Engine type V6, 3197cc
Power 250bhp @ 6200rpm
Torque 221 lb ft @ 4800 rpm
Transmission Six-speed manual
Suspension (front) double wishbones, coil springs, anti-roll
bar; (rear) MacPherson struts, coil springs, anti-roll bar
Tyres 225/45 R17W
Fuel 23.3mpg (combined)
C02; 287g/km
Top speed 153 mph
Acceleration 0 to 62mph 6.3sec
Insurance Group 19
Price £22,450
Dimensions 4213mm length, 1764mm width, 1412mm height
Verdict A riotous white-knuckle ride, exciting for a while
but exhausting to live with
