While they haven't arrived here yet, Alfa's new models are making an appearance in Australia. The results are looking an awful lot like a re-run of the Milano and 164. Now, as then, Alfa has produced fun, beautiful cars. Now, as then, they appear to have quality issues. Finally, now, as then, their price point puts them squarely in the cross hairs of some extremely fine German and Japanese offerings, and it's not at all clear they'll be able to compete.

Which is too damned bad. Combining sexy looks, high performance, oodles of character, and a "surprisingly low" price point is sales dynamite. Putting it all in an "expected" price point causes people to expect what they get out of other offerings in the range, i.e. stove bolt reliability and swiss-watch quality. If Fiat can't put this all together, Alfa's future in the US looks pretty grim to me. And hell I love the damned things.