Alfa Romeo 159 continues a style tradition

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Wednesday, 17 January 2007

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Alfa Romeo 159 continues a style tradition
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Alfa Romeo's 156 was an acclaimed work of styling art in its day. The Italian design team has shown its enhanced flair with the new Alfa Romeo 159, the 156 replacement, with a car that oozes passion, style and performance. Michael Moroney was captivated by the style

The new Alfa Romeo 159 comes with impressive styling and improved petrol engines. The entry price is €36,550 for the 1.9 litre petrol model, before delivery charges.

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The classic styling of the Alfa Romeo confirms the view of many that these cars are designed to provide visual pleasure. They always get a second look and they are always clearly and instantly identified as Alfa Romeo models. That look is what makes the new Alfa Romeo 159 a little special.

I've had the entry petrol powered Alfa Romeo 159 on the road to test its performance. The car comes with a 1.9 litre petrol engine that shows some technical improvements over the previous model. The entry model jumps up in engine size from a 1.6 litre to the new 1.9 litre and that alone ensures a power boost.

Alfa Romeo has boosted this engine size from a 1.8 litre to a 1.9 litre in the category and with that added a power injection of 20bhp. That gives the car a higher performance rating due to significant engine enhancements such as aluminium used to a greater extent in the engine structure for lightness. The engine torque rating is also enhanced with the bigger capacity.

This engine is somewhere between the previous 1.8 litre and 2.0 litre model in terms of power ability. The target of getting faster acceleration was not quite achieved, as the extra weight from additional safety features must have been a slight penalty.

The new Alfa Romeo 159 with the 1.9 litre JTS engine achieves a 0 to 100km/hr rating of 9.7 seconds, which is impressive in its own right. It is comparable with the 2.0 litre Ford Mondeo, Mazda 6 and Seat Toledo, while better than the performance of the 130bhp Audi A4 and 1.8 litre Opel Vectra.

So, in a sense it's in the middle of the sector in terms of acceleration ability. But it's no extraordinary car in terms of performance, even if it looks like one. That's why the Alfa Romeo design is so impressive; it gives the look of pace, without having to deliver on it in an extraordinary sense.

I've looked at the economy rating of the Alfa Romeo 159 entry model and compared it with the 2.0 litre petrol competition. For starters, this power group is not the most fuel efficient around. The Alfa Romeo 159 with its 1.9 litre JTS engine does not fare well in the economy rating. The car is rated to give an economy figure of 8.8 litres/100km (32.5mpg) on a combined run, which is close to the poorest performance of the 12 cars that I compared it against. The BMW 320i and the Honda Accord 2.0i delivered the best economy results in the group.

If you want the Alfa Romeo styling and good performance and most of all economy, then the diesel version with a similar sized 1.9 litre JTD engine will give you the best results for a slightly higher price. There is more than a 45 per cent economy bonus by taking the diesel option, which delivers more engine torque and almost equivalent acceleration to the petrol model.

Performance is important in a car that looks like the Alfa Romeo 159 and so are its safety features. Alfa Romeo has pumped up the safety package in the new 159.

The new Alfa 159 has improved driving features provided by a new suspension layout with 'high' double wishbones at the front and a multilink system at the rear. This is claimed to give a greater capacity to absorb typical Irish road roughness and more driving precision with better road holding.

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