The base metal wasn’t so promising. A platform that started life beneath the boxily functional, galvanised bodywork of the 1988 Fiat Tipo was to be the core building block of a car that had created legends for its maker, and was sufficiently difficult to replace that it had been out of production for seven years.
The outgoing Alfa Romeo GTV was a rear-wheel drive four-seater coupe designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro, as its much-admired predecessor had been, and while this Alfetta-based coupe had its issues – a habit of dissolving, the fractious relationship between its rear-mounted gearbox and a reluctant gearlever – it was a sophisticated beast of some charm.
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