I seem to remember similar hype on the launch of the 159, a better looking car than this new Giulia IMO. To my thinking, it has BMW style headlights and Audi rear lights. Alfa don't seem to understand the concept of coming up with a brand style, sticking with it and developing and honing it.

I hope it does well, but the simple fact is, that in the UK at least, a huge percentage of cars in this category are bought by fleets for user-choosers at mid management level. Even if they wanted to be different and give up their 3 series/A4/C Class/XE, the likely residuals of the Giulia, together with the brands mediocre reputation for reliability, means that lease costs will be way too high in comparison with the Germans.

Steve Cropley in this week's Autocar was saying that with each new model he has been hoping for an Alfa revival, but it never happens.

Time was when people would take the risk of unreliabilty (and rust) because Alfas such as the Alfasud were just so good to drive. Recent road tests have found most of them not even good to drive.

The last time I sat in an Alfa was in the newly-announced Giulietta. In the conversion to RHD someone had forgotten that the driver needs somewhere to put their left foot when off the clutch, which was right up against the transmission tunnel. D'oh!