Alfa Romeo 145 Cloverleaf/146 ti (1994-2001) Review

On the road

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You sit high, and the 145's cutaway side-window line emphasises your loftiness. The controls feel creaky and plasticky, and the steering column stalks (from the old Fiat Tipo) are overburdened with functions. You can't get a normal slow windscreen wipe, either - just a short-interval intermittent. The gearchange is precise and well lubricated, though. A high tail makes reverse-parking tricky in the 146, and both cars have a truly appalling turning circle. The engines make the cars. Always eager, always musical, they cajole you into a series of downchange throttle-blips just for the heck of it. The Alfas handle well enough to entertain, too, with crisp responses and a good understeer-resisting balance. But the ultra-high-geared steering, while very quick to react, lacks a proper feel of the road.

The twin-spark, twin-cam, 16-valve engine is a belter, and smooth too with its balancer shafts. Alfa Romeo has given the engine a crisp rasp despite modern noise regulations, and if it feels a little lacking in low-revs pull it's only because it comes on so strongly higher up the rev range and doesn't stop until 7000rpm. These are genuinely fast cars.