MUSEO STORICO ALFA ROMEO Alfa Romeo enthusiast Nathan introduces us to his favourite museums on the planet…

Open daily from 10am to 6pm, we arrived on a quiet afternoon at the site in Arese – the HQ of Alfa Romeo for two decades until 1986. The factory buildings have almost all gone, leaving just the Museo Storico. Inside, as you gaze in wonderment at the glittering concept cars and motorsport heroes, you can’t help but reflect that the Nineties and Noughties were probably the last great era for Alfa, even if the current Stelvio and Giulia are highly accomplished, wellregarded cars.

The contrast to the

156 is clear, though. Accomplished and well-regarded they may be, but they don’t feel like, well, Alfas.

The marque bet the farm on conquering the USA with the Giulia and Stelvio, but failed to learn the lessons from BMW. To succeed in America, you need a V8, which is why the E39 M5 and E92 M3 did so well across the

Atlantic. The twinturbo V6 may have been developed by Ferrari engineers, but it wasn’t enough. In chasing the American flag, Alfa abandoned its traditional European fanbase. There was no Giulietta replacement in the hatchback class, and no small saloon in the vein of the 156. The resulting sales figures are heart-stopping. In 2001 Alfa Romeo sold around 27,000 cars in the UK alone. Twenty years later it was barely a tenth of that, and the results in wider Europe aren’t much better. Lancia – a company that only sells one car, and in Italy alone – outsold Alfa across the whole of Europe.

The reason is simple – the Stelvio and

Giulia are simply too big for its traditional European heartlands, and while the new Tonale goes some way to recapturing that market, it’s another crossover/mini-suv.