Every week I find it jolly easy to be rude on these pages about the latest
product from some large and faceless corporation. But because I’m
fundamentally weak and spineless, I find it awfully difficult to be
similarly critical about the heroic efforts of a mere one-man band.
Chances are, the one-man band in question will have laboured over the project,
in his unheated shed, for years and years. He’ll have ignored the needs of
his wife and the education of his children because everything in his life
will have been devoted to the creation of his new “baby”.
And as a result he’d take it badly if a reviewer peered into the pram and
said: “My God, that’s ugly.”
Unfortunately, however, it will be ugly; and dangerous and impractical with
it. That’s because cars made in sheds on Black & Decker Workmates
are rarely tested in Australian deserts or in the frozen Arctic wastes.
They aren’t deliberately crashed to ensure they’re safe for people to collide
in, nor are they driven round a track for thousands of miles to make sure
they’re reliable. In fact they’re rarely tested at all, and this is another
reason that I avoid them. Because most are accidents that haven’t yet
happened.
Somehow, though, a specially tuned car did turn up at the house the other day.
It was an Alfa Romeo that had been breathed on by a company called
Autodelta, and since there was nothing else for me in the drive I swallowed
my nerves and took it for a spin...
I suppose if any cars can be tuned, Alfas make ideal candidates, chiefly
because Alfa Romeo itself is not allowed to tune them. Fiat, you see, owns
just about all the car firms in Italy, and each is given a specific role.
Ferrari: your job is to win the Formula One world championship until the end
of time. Maserati: your job is to make Ferraris that are a little softer and
a little more practical for the middle-aged businessman who wants bespoke
engineering on an everyday basis. Fiat: your job is to make cars for the
walnut-faced peasantry, and Lancia: your job is to make Fiats for the more
successful and style-orientated motorist.
Job done, and a car in there for everyone. But unfortunately that leaves Alfa
Romeo with nothing to do. They aren’t allowed to compete with any of the
others and that means they have to try making cars that aren’t too fast, or
sporty, or luxurious, or stylish, or cheap. In other words it’s in their
remit to be deliberately average.
Happily, they’re not very good at it. I drove a 166 to Wakefield last week and
must say that, on paper, it’s complete rubbish. It’s slower than the
equivalent 5-series BMW, thirstier than a solid rocket booster and equipped
with...well, almost nothing at all. It doesn’t even come with a cupholder
and the depreciation has to be experienced to be believed. Buy one tomorrow
for £29,900 and in one year it will be worth just £13,000. That’s £17,000
gone down the pan. Small wonder, I reasoned, as I plodded along, that
they’ve only managed to sell two in Britain this year.
And yet, beneath the politically inspired ordinariness, you can sense it has
been designed and thought-out by people who really do care. It had a soul,
that car...a real, genuine character that somehow managed to turn every mile
of the journey into a heart-warming event.
If I were to be in the market for a large four-door saloon, I wouldn’t
hesitate for a second. I’d hang the cost and get myself a 166.
Imagine, though, if you could combine this sense of being with some genuinely
exciting performance. Imagine if you could free Alfa from its Fiat shackles
and untie the engineers’ arms. And now stop imagining, because such a car is
here, in the shape of the Autodelta 147 GTA.
The heart of the machine is the engine, which is a bored-out version of the
renowned Alfa V6. So you get 3.7 litres which, thanks to specially made
stainless steel exhausts, a Ferrari throttle system and a remapped computer,
means an almost unbelievable 328bhp is to hand.
Now that’s all very well and good, but the standard car cannot cope with the
power from its 3.2 litre, 247bhp engine. If you even think about going near
the throttle, its front wheels light up like Catherine wheels and you go
nowhere in a cloud of expensive Pirelli smoke.
The trick is to trickle away from the lights, wondering why you didn’t simply
buy the 1.6 litre version, and then floor it. But even then you need to be
careful, because torque steer will put you straight into the nearest tree.
The fact is that you cannot put large power outputs through the front wheels
alone. They’ve got their work cut out doing the steering and the last thing
they need is to be distracted from the job with all those angry Italian
horsepowers.
Engineers at Saab once told me that the most power you could realistically
entrust to a front-wheel-drive car is 220bhp. A point they proved recently
by launching an unwieldy 250bhp front-driver called the Hot Aero.
And yet here’s Autodelta putting 328bhp through those front wheels. Are they
mad? Do they want to kill only their customers, or are they after people
coming the other way as well? Driving a front-wheel-drive hatchback with
328bhp is like playing Russian roulette with a fully loaded gun. It’s like
trying to fly a helicopter gunship while drunk: you’re going to crash, and
you’re going to die.
To try to get round the problem, they’ve fitted a limited-slip differential,
and that started the alarm bells ringing even more stridently. Ford fitted
such a thing to its Focus RS and turned what might have been quite a nice
car into a complete liability. On anything other than a smooth track it
would suddenly turn sharp left for no reason. And you couldn’t prepare
yourself, because sometimes it would suddenly turn sharp right. Limited slip
diffs in front-wheel-drive cars, I deduced after a sweaty, terrifying drive
through Wales in the RS, Do Not Work.
I was therefore decidedly nervous as I tippy-toed out of my drive in
Autodelta’s passport to the next life. I’d said a tearful goodbye to my
wife, and hugged the kids: Daddy wasn’t coming back.
The accident, I knew within moments, was going to be a big one, because this
car isn’t ferociously fast. It’s much quicker than that. Ferrari throttle?
Forget it. When you stamp on the accelerator it’s like you’ve hit the
Millennium Falcon’s hyperdrive. Suddenly all the stars are fluorescent
tubes.
In bald English, 0 to 60mph takes 5sec. Flat-out you’ll be doing 175mph, and
therefore there has never been a hatchback this hot before.
A corner was coming. And then it was a distant speck in my rear-view mirror. I
vaguely remember turning the wheel and I have a dim recollection of being
astounded by the grip...and then the moment was gone.
No, really, the damn thing’s a barnacle. Normally, in a tight bend, a
front-drive car will spin the inside wheel uselessly, which means the one on
the outside suddenly has to do all the steering and power-handling. But
obviously it can’t and you understeer off the road. But with that diff, the
inside wheel doesn’t spin, it grips and grips and then it grips some more.
Yes, bumps will cause some violent tugging at the wheel, and yes, it graunches
horribly while reversing at slow speed, but the upside is a whole new
chapter written into the laws of physics.
I’d love to stop at this point and give the man who made this car a nice warm
feeling in the pit of his tummy. But I’m duty bound to point out one or two
shortcomings.
First, the body kit was awful, but worse than this was the ride. The car I
drove belonged to a 22-year-old — I’d love to see his insurance bill — and
he’d set it up completely wrong. It had the compliancy of an RSJ and
the comfort of sitting down sharply on the sharp end of a piledriver.
But, I see from the brochure, you don’t need to fit springs and dampers made
from oak and iron. You can have more conventional stuff if that’s what you
fancy — and take it from me, you do. You can leave the body kit off the
options list as well.
This has an effect on price. As tested, my car cost £40,000, which,
considering the speed and grip, has to be the bargain of the century. But if
you just stick to the engine, the diff and some tasty tyres, it’s going to
cost a lot less.
Better still, you can have all the important modifications that can be fitted
to any Alfa: the 166, the 156 and the GTV. And that’s a tempting prospect.
It means you can have an Alfa Romeo. Not just a Fiat with an Alfa Romeo
badge.
VITAL STATISTICS
Model: Autodelta 147 GTA
Engine type: V6, 3750cc
Power: 328bhp @ 7300rpm
Torque: 260 lb ft @ 4700rpm
Transmission: Six-speed manual, front-wheel drive
Suspension: Height-adjustable coil struts
Tyres: 225/40 Z18
Fuel: 20mpg (combined)
Acceleration: 0-60mph: 5.0sec
Top speed: 175mph
Price: £39,234
Verdict: Mad amount of power and astounding grip make this the hottest
hatch ever
