Classifieds' Car Of The Day: Boisterous Alfa Romeo 147 GTA

We loved finally seeing the Alfa 4C in action on Top Gear last night, but at £45,000, it's a little out of our reach. Instead, we thought we'd delve into the classifieds and see what used performance cars can be bagged from the Italian marque, coming up with this: the 147 GTA.

If there's ever a car that embodies that Alfa cliche of 'not perfect but loveable', it's the 147 GTA. With Alfa's gorgeous sounding (not to mention looking) 3.2-litre 'Busso' V6 shoehorned under the bonnet, you certainly won't be wanting for performance. A power output of 247bhp meant it could trounce all of its contemporary rivals. 0-60mph takes 6.1 seconds, and the top speed is 153mph.

So, that's the good part, now here's the 'not perfect' bit: firstly, all the power is sent through the front wheels, with no clever diff to help use that power effectively. As a result, these 147 GTAs can be a handful to drive, with plenty of understeer and rampant torque steer. The build quality isn't amazing, and reliability isn't great.

There are solutions, however. Fitting either a 'Q2' or Quaife limited slip differential is a relatively inexpensive modification, but will transform the handling of any big V6, front-wheel drive Alfa. And as far as reliability goes, so long as you give a car like this the TLC it deserves - through regular servicing and sticking rigidly to timing belt change intervals - it won't be the disaster area people make it out to be.

This 2003 example looks tempting. It's done 57,000 miles, has that vital full service history, and is up for £7990. The depreciation on these 147 GTAs was horrific when new, but ironically, they've become quite sought after compared to other hot hatches of the time. Prices of these and the 156 GTA look to be levelling off and potentially increasing, so a 147 GTA is more of a sensible purchase than you might imagine...