Category: Small Family 
Price Range: £14,950 to £19,050
Handsome, individual styling now tidier after facelift, engines sound and feel sporty, fun to drive, good value.
Past reliability questionable especially with Selespeed transmission, ride fidgety without Comfort option, average safety performance, poor rear vision.
One of the most characterful cars in the class, but a purchase more of the heart than the head.
Alfa Romeo's 147, a past Car of the Year (it won by just one point from the Mondeo), is one of the most attractive small family hatchbacks on the market. The romance of its Alfa Romeo badge enhances its appeal, and for the 2005 model year it gains a gentle, Giugiaro-guided facelift to bring it in line with Alfa's latest look. Most obvious are the broader front grille and the wider, pointier head- and tail-lights, while inside new colour schemes and fluted door panels give a visual lift. There are changes below the skin, too, in the form of a simplified Easy Speed version of the Selespeed sequential transmission - it loses the steering-wheel paddles - and a new 'Comfort' suspension option which proves rather more promising for the keen driver than it sounds.
A more glamorous alternative to a Ford Focus, and an Italian answer to the Audi A3, BMW Compact and Mercedes Sport Coupe, it is available in three- and five-door form with engines including a 105bhp 1.6 Twin Spark and a 2.0-litre version of the same engine developing 150bhp. Two turbodiesels are also offered - diesels account for 30 percent of total 147 sales across Europe - and there's also the highly sporty, 250bhp, 3.2-litre V6 GTA, which we review separately and which hasn't undergone the facelift. The JTD diesels, both of four cylinders and 1.9 litres, come in 120bhp and 150bhp forms, the latter replacing the former 140bhp unit. The Selespeed and Easy Speed transmissions come only with the 2.0 Twin Spark. You might wonder why the 2.0 isn't the direct-injection, 165bhp JTS unit used since 2002 in the larger Alfa 156 (whose platform, in shortened form, the 147 shares); the official answer is that 'the Twin Spark is good enough'.
Freshening up the 147 towards the end of 2007, Alfa Romeo introduced the option of a'Q2' limited slip differential (£450). This entailed a significant and costly re-engineering of the small Alfa's front suspension but the pay-off is superior traction in slippery conditions or under hard acceleration. The Q2 option is only available with the 150bhp 1.9-litre diesel.
Being reunited with the 147 in 2007 has done little to shake our original verdict. Our 147 was patchy at best, suffering from infuriating creaks and squeaks in the dash and miss-matched plastic textures and colouring.
Latest Readers' Drives About the Alfa Romeo 147
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