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Alfa Romeo GT 2.0l Selespeed
When we dropped the 147GTA off and picked up the GT we were fully expecting to be disappointed on the performance front. After all, once you've experienced the sheer power of the 147GTA will you be happy with anything else? Well the short answer - if you want to stop reading here - is yes. Without giving the game away here there were a lot of things we liked about the GT even though on paper it doesn't make sense - a slower, less powerful car than costs more money? But as it turned out, we weren't allowed to just 'pick up the GT' - we got a lesson in how to drive a Selespeed (not just any Selespeed but the new Selespeed) thrown in at the same time. We also got the word according to Alfa about why this Selespeed thing is such a good idea. Without blathering on for ages about it - it turns out that European Union pollution control is going to get tighter - a lot tighter, and some of those bureaucrats in Brussels (clearly the few getting around Belgium on push bikes) have been talking seriously about banning the sale of manual cars. Why? Well it seems human beings are not very good at changing gears and the spike in pollution each time 3 million people change gear is putting all the statistics out of whack - in short if we all drove automatics we'd be breathing much cleaner air. Alfa - realising this would take the fun out of driving - invented Selespeed (then Ferrari invented it again, but that's another story). The new improved Selespeed system on the GT actually changes gear faster than a human can and also prevents anything happening that could remotely damage the engine - but it allows you to decide when to change gear. The way the Selespeed works in the GT is like this: you
push the 'City' button and the car behaves like an automatic - you don't
have to use the paddle shifts and/or the little gear stick to change gear
at all. Switch 'City' off and you have to use the paddles/stick to change
gear. Hit the 'Sport' button and the system changes gear more quickly.
In fact if you put the car into 'Sport' and from a standstill floor the
accelerator the car does a very impressive wheel spin and takes off pretty
quickly. 'Doesn't that mean the car is out of control' I hear you say
- nope - all the various systems (in this case mainly the VDC - see FACTfile
for technical information) monitor what is safe and what isn't and will
allow you to do unsocial but safe things with your GT. We felt obliged
to test this at the lights a few times and ended up looking sheepishly
at fellow drivers at the next set of lights after some ridiculous wheelspins. All in all - at the end of a week driving the GT - we actually got to quite like the Selespeed system - if not for the fun you can have playing around with it plus also if you are feeling lazy you can just put it into auto mode. It only got confused once when we were driving up Elanora Road in Sydney's Northern Beaches - a blind hairpin bend on a 30 degree hill and it (or the driver) didn't know what to do. Perhaps we'll have to go back for some advanced Selespeed lessons. Two other things to note about the new Selespeed system - you can still roll back on a hill start if you're not careful and if you are waiting at the lights for longer than a certain period of time (we think it's 2 minutes) the system will take you out of 1st gear and put you in Neutral. It does tell you on the dash display but that's no consolation when you put your foot down and rev your way to nowhere! Performance-wise the GT is obviously not as powerful as the 147GTA - particularly the 2.0 version we tested. Bear in mind though that you can get the top of the range version with the 147 GTA engine in it and Autodelta in the UK have produced a supercharged version (article here) of this if you think it needs a bit more oomph. What we did notice was that the handling of the GT is clearly superior to the GTA. It's a lower car and - particularly in cornering - displayed a smoothness not present in the 147. A lot of other things about the car are also a step up - some standard GT options are not even available on the new flagship 166 model - for example the 10-CD stacker and the reversing sensors. The GT also felt somewhat more - how can we put this - refined - than the 147: tan leather interior, nice sound system, ashtrays for the passengers in the back (clearly designed by Italians…). The GT is also a bit of a tardis - it's a lot bigger on the inside than it is on the outside - it is a hatchback even though it looks and feels like a car with a boot. The only niggles we had were a problem getting the front passenger seat to lock into position (strangely did not happen when we returned the car…) and the front seat backs which need to flip down to let passengers in the back were a bit clunky. Overall - as we said at the beginning - we were pleasantly
surprise by the GT. If forced to make a choice between the 147GTA, the
GT and the 166 we might even plump for the GT - we took the car for a
drive from Sydney up to Newcastle and back and it was an absolute pleasure.
And from a practical point of view it drinks a lot less petrol than either
the 147GTA or the 166 without a huge difference in performance. Unless
of course you want to scare the crap out of your passenger every single
time you pull away - in which case you do need the GTA. How much?
In summary
Car driven: Alfa GT 2.0l Selespeed 5-speed Related ItalianCar articles on the GT © 2005 italiancar 21/05/05
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