2009 Alfa Romeo Brera Q4

2009 Alfa Romeo Brera Q4 2009 Alfa Romeo Brera Q4
First Drive Review

Alfa Romeo has a fine heritage but a difficult recent history, particularly in the U.S. In the early '90s, the Italian marque limped away, just as too many of its 164 sedans had done.

Rumors of Alfa's return to the U.S. are an annual topic of auto-industry prognostication. It now looks as though the marque will officially make it here with face-lifted versions of the Brera coupe and Spider convertible in time for the 2009 model year. The current plan is for the creation of an Alfa sales network based around the 47 U.S. Maserati dealers.

The Brera and the Spider are based on a shortened version of the 159 sedan platform [Upfront, C/D, September 2005]. In Europe, the cars have a variety of gasoline and diesel engines, but U.S. models will have only the 3.2-liter V-6 gas engine. It's based on the GM "high feature" V-6 but adapted with Alfa cylinder heads incorporating direct fuel injection and cam phasing that provides continuously variable timing for the intake and exhaust valves. It produces 256 horsepower and a rich exhaust note that is typically Alfa (and not at all GM).

The platform locates the engine transversely and accommodates front- or four-wheel drive, which Alfa calls Q4 and employs a 43/57 front-to-rear torque split that varies in response to wheel slip using a Torsen center differential. In Europe, the V-6 comes with a six-speed manual transmission for now, but a six-speed automatic transmission should be introduced later this year.

We drove the Brera in Italy, and although we had some questions about the road behavior of the Euro-only front-wheel-drive versions - disconcerting torque steer and tramlining that seemed to depend on the tire size and type - the Q4 model that we'll get in the States had a confident composure. With its quick steering (2.25 turns lock-to-lock) and rear-biased torque split, it was eager to turn into corners and then gripped hard.

There is no doubt the U.S. is getting the best version of the platform, the Brera V-6 Q4 hatchback. It is fast - 0 to 62 mph in 6.8 seconds, according to the company - but not a class leader, owing to a curb weight of about 3600 pounds. With an estimated price of $42,000, the Brera faces some solid competition among cars like the new Audi TT, BMW Z4 M coupe, and Mercedes SLK. The Brera can claim practicality, as it has four seats and a hatchback, but an adult can't travel in the back and the liftgate lip is so high that loading luggage is a struggle.

You can forgive those issues, though, because it looks so good. Brera (that's the name of the artists' quarter of Milan, Alfa's hometown) was the name of legendary designer Giorgetto Giugiaro's glorious concept car from 2002. It was so admired that Alfa revised its production plans to incorporate Giugiaro's ideas and adopted the V-shaped hood and triple-light front for the 159 and the overall shape of the rear-drive concept for the coupe. The proportions are slightly different, but the essence remains, and it's a beauty.