You Can Buy An Alfa GT For Just Over £1000 And I'm Actually Quite Tempted

Alfa Romeo really does have a lot of making up to do. Sure, in the Giulia the Italian manufacturer now has a genuine BMW 3-series rival with a - shock horror - newly developed rear-wheel drive platform, but the era of shoddy Alfas we’re only just getting away from leaves a lot to be desired.

Case in point? The GT coupe. Under its handsome Bertone-penned flanks it’s essentially a rehashed, front-wheel drive 147 hatchback, a car derived from the 156 saloon, which itself sat on an old Fiat platform.

When I first passed my test I wanted one of these really badly, until I sat in one at the Goodwood Festival of Speed and experienced the laughably cheap-feeling cabin first hand. I do like the idea of the 3.2-litre ‘Busso’ V6 version, but the slow 2.0-litre ‘JTS’ petrol or 1.9-litre ‘JTDM’ diesel? Forget it.

However, when cars depreciate enough, they can become tempting propositions despite what you might have thought about them previously. And these non-V6 GTs are getting cheap: while the six-pots require a budget of £5000 and up, prices for other versions start as low as £1000 these days.

Yes, these aren’t the last word in handling and they’re hilariously slow (you’re looking at 9.6 seconds to 60mph for the 150bhp diesel for example), but as a pretty - potentially disposable - runaround for a little while? If I needed such a thing right now, I’d be tempted.

This one has done just under 100,000 miles, and is up for £1295. It is the diesel however, which has a habit of breaking. Expensively. So if you’re serious about buying one, maybe wait until a cheap JTS comes up. Either way, that’s a lot of car for £1295, isn’t it?