Always the sternest of the motoring critics, Top Gear recently sent Paul Horrell to Balocco to test drive the new Alfa Romeo Brera, and he came away overwhelmed by almost every aspect of the exciting new Italian sportscar. Here are some of the highlights of his report:

DESIGN

"Saunter up close and enjoy the perfectly integrated detailing. From 10 paces, admire the strong surfaces. And when it's just 'Tangoed' you on the motorway, check out the wide track, the tough stance, the serious way it suckers down onto the road.

"Hey, who cares that you can't see a bit of it from the driving seat when you're trying to reverse? It's for car styling exactly like this that God saw fit to give us parking sensors. Sliding our point of focus forwards, the rest of the car is pretty darned gorgeous too. Behold those clean but rather rakish rear pillars, the narrow-eyed glazing, the perfectly integrated side creases, the neat triangular blades for door handles and side indicators, the six-lamp nose, the proud grille."

ENGINES

"What's under the hood is just as aesthetically pleasing. You get the choice of Alfa's three choicest-sounding engines. At the top of the tree is a 260bhp V6 doing its stuff via four-wheel drive. It's unrelated to Alfa's old V6, but manages to sound remarkably similar - deep and thrumming at low revs, sharp and keen higher up. An engine that loves to be pasted. Alternatively, you can have the 2.2-litre four, which, at 185bhp, is hardly measly for a starter engine. Another new one, this too has the proper Alfa rasp, and a rev-happy way about it, its smoothness aided by twin balancer shafts.

"Both engines have double variable cams and direct petrol injection. Being Alfa, direct-injection isn't used merely as a light-throttle economy aid, but as a full-noise boost to power, because it allows a higher compression ratio than usual. Or then again, how about a diesel, sir, for that tax-efficient torque? It's a full-bodied 2.4-litre inline five that kicks out 200bhp and sounds just like an Audi ur-Quattro."

ON THE ROAD IN THE BRERA 2.2 JTS

"The roads around Alfa's test track at Balocco can be a frustrating place to test cars: you're either flatlining drearily down on the plains or you're up in the twisty hill roads, hoping for a break to attack the curves but always stuck behind a bus as it belches smoke in your face while crawling its way through endlessly straggling villages. But not this time- it's a dead-end road that climbs to a palatial hill-top church and sanctuary. No one seems to need sanctuary this morning, so I've got the run of the roadway.

"I'm in the 2.2. Now, you're thinking, a series of sharp, damp uphill corners is a pretty harsh test of a reasonably powerful front-driver. Wheelspin and understeer ahoy. Well, no, not really. The Brera is tidy. At the moment I'm saying nothing more- just tidy. Not especially agile or darty. Not like a braying little hot hatch. It's cooler-headed than that, but to its credit it staves off understeer pretty well and shows fine traction.

"The engine sounds terrific, encouraging you to swing the needle to 7,000 in second gear - and, in fact, you pretty much have to, because the gearbox opens up a gaping hole between second and third, so if you don't change up late, you find the engine's right off the boil in third. Daft mistake to make when it's a six-speed gearbox. Oh, and the gearshift is a bit notchy, especially on the 4-5 diagonal.
 

"On the way back down the hill, where gravity improves the performance in its inimitable no-wheel-drive way - like an extra hundred horsepower and no need for traction control - it's easier to enjoy the high-geared steering and grippy tyres. The brakes do their job, but frankly they go about it with a bit of an unenthusiastic shrug. They need a firmer pedal. It's in bigger, open swervery that this car feels at its best. Third-gear-and-up cornering, when you feel the bite through all four tyres, roll your wrists to load the steering wheel and find it feeds back the loads, so you feel properly connected and confident."

ON THE ROAD IN THE BRERA 3.2 V6 Q4

"No danger of misbehaviour on the V6. It has 'Q4' on the bootlid - meaning four-wheel drive, including a fancy Torsen C centre diff that normally emphasises reardrive, but which can send the effort to whichever end of the car is best placed to deploy it. Of course, the extra 160kg holds it back a bit, and the gearing is considerably longer too, so you're not immediately bowled over by the thrust of an extra litre's displacement.

"But the backbeat of the V6 is a wonderful thing, and once you stretch this car's legs you find the performance is pretty authoritative. A 150mph car is generally enough for me. But I'm driving it around the Balocco track itself, and on a track you always want for more go. Especially when the car deals with what it has as easily as this one does. I've never driven a car that less needed its ESP system. It's so benign, full of messages as the torque works its way around the car when you squeeze the throttle at the exit of a corner. The Brera simply squats, neutralises and claws its way toward the straight.

"If the straight in question is a motorway, you'll have a more relaxing time in the V6- the 2.2 four-cylinder is spinning pretty fast even in sixth. Not a nasty noise, sure, but sometimes you might want to be listening to your tunes. I grumbled about too much wind noise, and an engineer showed me the place the pre-prod cars have a gap in their seals. A fix is on its way, says he. The motorway ride is pretty good, and most of the time it doesn't feel too stiff on B-roads. But there's a bit of secondary shuddering. It's coming from the suspension, because the bodyshell feels reassuringly strong and isn't wobbling."

SUMMARY

"You get a hatchback, you get rear seats (only for anyone under four feet six, really), you get the dashboard and amenities of a 159. Which poses the question, does it actually feel enough of a coupe? Well, if coupe means 'sports car' to you, possibly not. It drives like the 159, a sporting saloon, and a good one at that. But the cues are different. The windscreen is raked more, the roof and doors wrap themselves around you more closely, the seats are different and more pseudo-racy. Yup, it's a cool place to be in here. You'll be paying for it, though. The starting price is 'about £25k' and that's BMW 325i money, though the Brera is more spec-heavy, thanks to standard leather, glazed roof, cruise, dual-zone climate control etc. But really, you'll select this car over a 159 because of the way it looks from the outside. Does this mean you're being vain and superficial? On the contrary, tell yourself you're being generous. You're illuminating the lives of others by showing them something of extraordinary beauty."

Report courtesy of Top Gear