Alfa Brera Review

Alfa Romeo Brera

The Brera shares its platform with the Alfa 159 but has a 175mm shorter wheelbase for better handling and manoeuvrability and a wide, fairly low stance for extra stability, which makes for quite a large footprint on the road.

Alfa Romeo makes much about the size of the Brera. For sure, it’s a coupe and is listed as having a 2+2 seating arrangement, which means suitable for short journeys and occasional use. However, the rear seats are fairly sizeable and little short of useless. Even a child would have a problem with the amount of legroom offered behind the shortest of people. I think it would have been better to replace the seats with lockers and shelves as they have in the Alfa Spider.

Nonetheless, seats they are. Divided by a central armrest console, which hides a ski-flap, the two rear seats have a 60:40 split and fold function, extending the boot capacity from 300-litres to 610-litres. If the optional (£600) Bose hi-fi system is installed then the space is reduced to 236- and 546-litres. Because of the shape of the rear end of the Brera, the boot edge is quite high and the lip is heavily curved, making it difficult when dealing with heavy items. Moreover, it is easy to lose smaller items, which tend to hide under the deep boot lip.

Moving forward, the front of the cabin is almost identical to that in the Alfa 159. Depending on the chosen trim level, the centre console has a titanium- or brushed aluminium-effect face with three deeply recessed gauges below three larger air vents. The start-up procedure involves putting the chunky key-fob into a slot in the centre console and pressing the ‘start’ button.

The rest of this area is given over to the controls for the dual-zone climate control system and the integrated audio system. Satellite navigation is available as an option, either with the Alfa Romeo bCONNECT service at £2000 or without, costing £1500. Both systems feature a 6.5-inch colour display. Blue & Me, the hands-free system with voice activation and Bluetooth with media player will add a further £300.

Comfort is assured and it’s easy to find a good driving position in front of the rake and reach adjustable steering wheel and grey-faced dials. I like the chic way the gauges are labelled in Italian – Giri sounds so much better than rpm.

The Brera come in two trims; the standard Brera and the Brera SV. The latter is in conjunction with the 3.2JTS V6 Q4 and the 2.4 JTDM engines. These power units are also available in the ‘standard’ car along with the entry-level 2.2 JTS petrol engine bearing a price tag of £22,800.

The ‘standard’ 2.4 JTDM is priced at £26,400 while the SV version is £27,500. The extra £1,100 buys the aforementioned brushed aluminium centre console and trim, electrically folding, adjustable and heated wing mirrors, a fixed, panoramic sunroof, leather upholstery in a variety of colours and stainless steel kick-plates. The extra money is worth it for the sunroof alone, which lets in an enormous amount of sunlight and changes the ambience of the cabin completely.