Sometimes my job is just that – a job, a means to end which results in a pay cheque the end of every week serving as a reminder of how comparatively low my wages are and how much the tax man takes off me. The remaining amount gets swallowed up by keeping a roof over my head and paying various but ultimately necessary bills.

There are days when it is nothing but paper work and sitting at the desk answering such inane questions as “why has my engine blown up? I know it’s got no oil in it but I didn’t think that would cause a problem”.

However, other days are just perfect. I would normally say that would be a day off, but on this particular day it would be because I was behind the wheel of a 1974 Fiat 124 Spider for quite some time. And, I will accept no arguments on this, it is prettier than its Alfa Romeo Spider rival.

Launched in 1966 at a time where Fiat would make a boggo spec saloon car and make sports alternatives from them, the Spider was one of two spin-off models, the other being the Sport Coupe. The Spider, in typical Italian fashion, was both styled and manufactured at one of the great styling houses – Pininfarina. Production ended in 1985, the last three years the car was badged as Pininfarina and not Fiat.

Engines installed would be the celebrated range of Fiat twin cam engines, designed by ex-Ferrari engineer Aurelio Lampredi. The Lampredi-designed family of engines would remain in production well into the 1990s and a version of this engine could be found in the Lancia Delta Integrale.

The car I’ve driven belongs to where I work. It’s an ex-Californian import which has had a right hand drive conversion. This meant it was pretty free of rust. The engine fitted to the car I drove was the 1438cc twin cam which develops 96bhp which sounds as daunting as a plate of salad by modern standards, but was perfectly acceptable in 1966. This is mated to a slick five speed gearbox and sweet handling from its rear wheel drive set up. It’s had a photographic rebuild and feels tight and taut.

The Spider made a decent case for itself at the time with its road manners. Reports at the time tell how it was respected in the same breath as rivals from Alfa Romeo and Porsche, only being a humble Fiat cost a lot less. Now I’ve driven a few of the cars that were rivals at the time, so I can gauge the competition. Its chief British rival was the MGB, which I’ve driven in coupe GT form and roadster form. This is a car which has all the dynamic abilities of a drunken woodlouse, and later so-called rubber bumper models handle like a hippopotamus on ice. On the other side, the Triumph Spitfire had all the performance of an asthmatic fat man.

Now as we know, old cars will always be beaten dynamically by more modern cars. It’s simply progression – improvements through the years. The Spider does feel quite dated in comparison with newer machines but even now still makes a decent case for itself. It’s not fast and it’s not Lotus Elise precise but still feels quite nimble, balanced and certainly enjoyable. The gearchange is fantastic, except for reverse. The brakes felt reassuring, in small part due to having disc brakes all round but mainly due to needing a complete overhaul before I took it out on the road!

Sure, it has its flaws, like nearly every car I like. For instance, it has a very Italianate driving position. That means long arms, short legs – you have to be shaped like an ape to drive it. The glovebox is suitable for one glove, the sunvisors are useless and getting into reverse gear is an arse. The steering is a little vague, probably due to this particular car being ex-Californian and having a right hand drive conversion.

However, these flaws really, really don’t matter. It’s easily pretty enough and the interior stylish. The engine is such a gem, it pulls well and sounds fantastic all of which add up to make the driving experience so entertaining. Especially on this particular day, sun out, roof down, shades on and the Cornish roads. After driving so many modern cars – some excellent, some average and some terrible, I’ve driven some old cars that I really like only to come away totally disappointed. To be honest I’d still love the 124 if it drove like a horse and cart. But thankfully it didn’t disappoint and doesn’t drive like a horse and cart, it’s a truly entertaining car. I love it even more.

The current Fiat Bravo is a vastly underrated car and has sold about three since it was launched back in 2007. It replaced the Stilo, which itself replaced the outgoing Mk1 Bravo. Confused? You should be, as the current Bravo is basically a reskinned Stilo.

Fiat wanted to distance themselves from any association from the Stilo as essentially the car was a failure. It fell criminally short of any of its sales targets, the five door looked like the inbred sister of the family and had the alleged driving dynamics of a pissed newt. The proper performance version arrived three years too late and by the end of its life, the model range was a mess. So on the success of the Panda and Grande Punto, Fiat brought us a new car, reverting back to the Bravo name and  styled in the same vein as Grande Punto but with overtones of the old Bravo. And I think Fiat have been pretty successful. The rear end is probably the best view, that being the most obvious link to the old Bravo.

Engines wise, originally a choice of normally aspirated and turbo charged petrol engines were available and a brace of diesels. The diesels are pretty decent machines – currently available are a 1.6 and 2.0 turbo diesels but as I’ve no real interest in diesels I’ll ignore they exist altogether and concentrate on the petrol variants instead.

The normally aspirated petrol lump develops 95bhp and is similar to that fitted in the old Stilo. It’s underpowered in a car of this size, but is still a gem of an engine. It’s free revving and makes you feel you are going quicker than you really are.  You need to stir the gears quite a bit with the lack of grunt but thankfully the six speed manual box has a sweet, slick operation. The other petrol units included the T-Jet engines in 120bhp and 150bhp tune and to be honest the gain of the 120 over the normally aspirated unit wasn’t worth the extra outlay. The 150 lump, however, similar to that used in the Abarth 500 and Alfa Mito is a fantastic engine that pulls well, revs cleanly and sounds good. It’s good for o-60 in around 8 seconds and a top speed of 135mph. It’s not a hot hatch, but it’s a good attempt at a warm hatch with relatively good fuel economy.

Now, being a Stilo owner and knowing the driving dynamics of the car, I was keen to see what the Bravo would be like considering it essentially uses a lot of the same oily bits. The first thing that is noticeable is what and improvement the electric power steering is. There is still an air of vagueness about it, like on most electric units, but the turn-in is sharper and generally feels beefed up. Cornering is much tauter and the car feels much stiffer and much more firm, though on the flip side of that the ride remains very pliant on all but the most potholed of surfaces, even with the low profile alloy wheels fitted.

The original Bravo from the nineties suffered from a few reliability glitches if the car wasn’t maintained well but the main achilies heel was the quality of the interior. Or lack of it. I’ve seen tracing paper with more resilience to falling to bits than the interior of old Bravos from personal experience, and this is one area the Stilo improved on. However, whereas the interior of the Stilo is nice, to be honest it is pretty dull. The interior of the new Bravo seems to be screwed together well and it looks fantastic, especially in Sport trim as featured in this test car with its part cloth part alcantara seats and red stitching.

If I have any gripes with the car is, like the Stilo a lack of a foot rest for your clutch foot. Whilst I’m nitpicking, the speedo can be obscured by the steering wheel at certain angles, the under-leg support on the front seats could be better and room in the back is compromised. It seems a shame that after the packaging miracles of 1980s Fiats such as the Uno and Tipo where there were so much room for the size of car that Fiat can’t seem to follow the trend with their latest mid-size offerings. Some families do need to carry more that just amoebas in the back.

Equipment levels are generous with even the most basic of models getting electric windows, remote central locking, six airbags, electric heated mirrors, CD player and air conditioning as standard. Move up the range a little and the model driven here gets cruise control, leather steering wheel and gearknob, sports seats, spoiler, side skirts, low profile alloy wheels and MP3. Move on up further and you can specify Bluetooth connectivity, tinted windows and much more besides.

The car I have been driving around in and the one photographed here is a 1.4 normally aspirated Active Sport. So, engine wise, pretty much the same as my 1.4 Active Stilo. And all I can tell you is that is so much better than the Stilo in the way it looks, feels and drives. I like this car. I like it a lot. And to be honest, I’d rather save myself a few quid and have one of these instead of the new Alfa Giulietta.

So to tot up the totals then

Styling: 18/20
Performance: 14/20
Handling: 13/20
Ride: 15/20
Comfort: 12/20

So out of a possible hundred it scores 72. The Stilo itself is not as bad a car as the general motoring press would have you believe – I know, I’ve had one for close to six years and I love it. However, the Bravo takes what the Stilo has and makes a pretty good job of it. True, it has shortcomings – it could have more room in the back, the footwells are cramped and some of the instruments can be a bit hard to read. But it’s possible to overlook these in the fact that it’s a fine looking car, an entertaining drive and easy to live with.

>Oh my, it has come to this. I am reduced to road testing the wife’s car. Well, I suppose that must mean I need to get into it and actually drive it. Fabulous. Can I not walk? Oh, ok I’ll have a go. Firstly, to waste some time and space I shall include a photo of the front. No, that really hasn’t made me want to drive the car any more than I did before.

Whilst the picture of the car is loading, I shall talk about the styling. Well, it has some wheels, four of them on the exterior in fact. One notable fact about it is the designers used the same shape on the left hand side as they did the right hand side. What is clever, however, is there are apertures with opening panels that allow you to gain access into the car. Even better, these panels have cut outs with glass in them so you can see out of them. That really shows the forward thinking and intelligence of the Vauxhall design team that were working on the Corsa.

However, once inside the car is where the problem starts. Mainly when sat in the drivers seat as this implies that one must drive the car. There are many different shades of grey which liven up the dark grey dashboard. You do get some standard equipment within the car which include seats, steering wheel, engine, suspension, glovebox and a dashboard. There are some windows that are operated by electricity. There is also a novel locking system whereby you turn the key and sometimes some of the other doors unlock as well. This is an ideal security device and again marks out Vauxhall engineers as geniuses. It means when the other three doors are unlocked, the fourth door won’t fall off because it’s locked no matter how hard you crash into a pillar with it.

Now it’s time to drive this car. It is powered by a 1.2 16 valve engine that develops a whopping 74 bhp. However, it fails to deliver about 67 of those 74 horses due to the set up of the gearbox. You see, it is equipped with a manual gearbox with an electronic clutch system, thus the car being classed as an automatic. Vauxhall call this system “Easytronic” which is a clever mix of words. I would explain to those that don’t know how clever it is but I really can’t be bothered. With this automatic gearbox you can drive it in auto mode or sequential manual gearbox. Automatic doesn’t really work sequentially as it can select 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th but not necessarily in that order. In automatic mode the gear changes take 6-10 working days. Things do work a little better in manual mode. For example, if you are thinking of taking a trip from Penzance to Gloucester you’ll be in 2nd gear by the time you get to Exeter. This again shows the foresight of the Vauxhall engineering team as the gear change time has reduced from 6-10 working days to precisely a few hours.

This is the back of the car, in case you hadn’t realised

The ride is most excellent if you cannot feel anything. However, if you do have senses of pain and feeling, be prepared to pick your spine up at the end of every journey as it will be in kit form in the foot well. Cornering ability is pretty good actually. If you go on a road with no corners. Performance wise? I’m not sure as I’d lost interest and the will to live by the time the gearbox changed up to fifth. As for acceleration, it is quicker accelerating at 27 mph as a Ford Fiesta is at 25mph.

Practicality wise, there are ups and downs. It is not advisable to put anything in the door pockets as they are made from the same plastics and compact disc cases and disintegrate with a passing breath. The boot is vast compared with an insect and cleverly, credit once again to Vauxhall’s boffins, right up at the front beyond the cabin there is storage for an engine and gearbox, should you wish to carry them around with you.

So, a verdict then? Well, it’s a car.

>Well, I can’t refer to it as anything else. It would be politically incorrect of me to refer to it as an MG Midget, despite that’s what it is.

This is going to be a short blog entry for once. I’ve discovered I need an old car in my life, but what’s on the horizon, this isn’t going to be practical at all. After spending a small amount of time in an MG Midget, photographed here, I’ve decided I want one.

Why was I in an MG Midget? To drive it to the Cornish Festival of Speed, held at Tregrehan House in St Austell, which was a fantastic day out and well worth any person’s money to be honest. Lots of fantastic cars on display, of which this little MG was one of the exhibits, and lots of entertainment watching different types of cars compete for the fastest time on the sprint hill climb. Cars from Minis and Escorts through to single seat racers and purpose-built rally and racing machinery could be found competing.

So, why do I want an old car I can’t even hear you ask. It’s just back to basics pure driving, there’s nothing between you, the car and the road. No electronic driving aids. No computermabobs to break. And on a day like it was, with the roof down, blue skies, sun shining and the shades on, it was fantastic. Put it this way, I was glad I ended up driving the Midget rather than the Alfa Mito or Giulietta the other guys took. What’s happening? I’m hankering after an MG sports car and I don’t even own a flat cap, or even have a beard or drink beer with bits of twig in it. I still want one. Despite the fact that something broke on the journey back. The bearings in the dynamo packed up. This is a British sports car after all, and something falling off or breaking on every journey really is normal.

And yes, I have realised this is yet another rant-free blog entry. I’ve just had nothing worth ranting about as late. I promise normal service shall resume shortly.

>Most car magazines tend to do long term tests on selected cars to show how reliable (or unreliable) they may be. But in these tests, cars tend to be kept for 6-12 months and then that’s it. So I’ve decided that the Stilo qualifies for one of these long term test jobbies seems I’ve owned it for just over five years and 50,000 miles.  If you’re a normal person, stop reading now. No, seriously. However, if you are a complete nerd like me, pray continue.

First, an introduction to the Stilo. A car launched to replace the old Brava and Bravo (and ironically replaced by the …er…. Bravo) in 3 and 5 door form. Whereas the 5 door version is as appealing as sawing your arm off, the 3 door is a fantastic looking car and that would be my car in the picture. A little time later, the versatile and smart Multiwagon estate version was launched.

So, just over five years ago I decided to purchase a 3 door 1.4 Active. An ex-demonstrator that had covered 180 miles over 12 months. A saving of £4,500 on list price was certainly order of the day. It did raise a few eyebrows, as the Stilo had a horrendous reliability record when first launched. It really did seem like as good an idea as Ben Collins wanting to reveal himself as the Stig, the big, greedy unknown arse bucket. However, my car is a Phase 2 Stilo which means it had a whole host of improvements to make it “better”.

So, first of all, how does it drive? It’s average, to be honest. The electronic steering has as much life as a corpse and as much communication as a monk who has taken a vow of silence. The handling is a bit Golf-like. However on the plus side, the ride is outstanding and the interior comfort is as good if not better than anything in its class. The engine, if underpowered in a car this size at just under 100bhp, is a gem and wants to be revved and is coupled to a six speed manual gearbox which is positive and slick in action. Which is just as well as it does need to be used a fair amount. Interior space is good, with ample room for five Mafia types and enough storage spaces and cubby holes that would shame Ikea.

As it’s poverty spec Active it is bottom of the range so it comes with some seats and an engine. It does have a few extra bits though such as alloy wheels, remote locking, electric windows, electric heated mirrors, trip computer, decent sound system with MP3, six airbags. Did I mention seats? And an engine?

So, we’ve established it’s a fairly run of the mill drive, but an excellent looker and it has some seats, but what has it been like for reliability? To be fair, pretty bloody good after 50,000 miles. As far as spending money on it goes, I’ve had it MOT’d (it’s been through three and passed every one, and I didn’t even have to bribe or sack the tester!), serviced it, replaced wear and tear items such as cam belt, brake pads and the exhaust, as well as tyres, petrol and insurance. It’s never broken down, never left me stranded, never failed to start. I can’t exactly mock the legendary Italian build quality either as nothing has ever fallen off and it’s pretty rattle free also.

In the six years, the blips which can be put down to the car include:
– One or two spurious warning lights coming on early on in its life. But it is a Stilo.
– Replacement wiper linkage at 2 years old due to noise (replaced under warranty)
– Speedo stopped working
– 1 of 4 coil packs failed after 5 years and 46,000 miles. The other three are originals. If you drove a petrol engined Renault, you’d be replacing these coil packs every 6-12 months.

However, it has had more replaced than it need to due to an accident in which Her Indoors hit a patch of diesel and span it 360 in the middle of the road, smashing into curbs before eventually mounting a boulder (oooh errr). Three damaged alloy wheels (two of which snapped clean) meant it had to have a new set of wheels and tyres, bent rear axle, stub axles, front wishbones, wheel bearings all round and a general sprucing up of the bodywork. All of which meant the insurance company had a bill just short of £3,000. That’s hardly the fault of the car, though.

The Stilo does have an iffy image problem, due to Fiat wanting to make a Golf clone, the early reliability issues, the styling of the five door model and the slightly average dynamics. But is the image it has deserved? Judging by our experiences with the Stilo, not a bit of it. Yes, the dynamics could be sharpened up a bit, but it’s still better to drive than the equivalent Golf, Renault or Vauxhall for example. It’s also proved to be a generally fault-free car, and considering the treatment the car has had from myself and She Who Must Be Obeyed, I personally think it’s stood up and made a case for itself pretty well.

>The Alfa Romeo Mito. It’s pronounced Me Toe, don’t you know. The name is conjured up between two place names – the Mi for Milan (used to be Alfa’s HQ) and To for Torino (where it’s built). Since its launch around 18 months ago, I’ve driven just about all different variations of Mito, some are good, two are excellent and two are aboslutely terrible and would never advise ever driving.

So, what is the Mito? Well, obviously, it’s a car. And it’s built by Alfa Romeo, only it’s not. The Mito is actually built by Fiat in Turin alongside the Grande Punto / Punto Evo as essentially it is the same car. Peel away the fancy bodywork and it’s all Fiat. The chassis, engines, the lot.

So, what’s available? In the current range there’s 4 choices of petrol engine, all 1.4 – two of which are normally aspirated with 77bhp or 95bhp. The other two are the Fiat Group’s new MultiAir efforts which develop 135bhp or 170bhp in Cloverleaf guise. There’s also 2 diesels – a 1.3 and a 1.6.

I’m not really going to go into trim levels because I’m not interested in that, I want to know what it drives like. Is it any good? Where am I? And why am I asking questions all the time? Do you know?

It’s a fine little car to drive really if you steer clear of the 78 Junior which is about as Alfa-like as a Ford Orion. I’d also steer clear of the 1.6 diesel because as a package, it fails spectacularly. The economy can be match by its petrol counterparts, it’s a lot dearer, it isn’t as good as the 1.3 diesel, it’s noisy, unrefined and the gearchange is apalling.

All models save for Junior have Alfa’s DNA (geddit?) system which offers three different styles of driving. D is for Dynamic, N for Normal and A for All Weather. When Dynamic is activated, assistance to the steering is reduced, torque is increased and the throttle response is much crisper and sweeter (In the Cloverleaf, it D mode also changes the suspension settings as it has an adaptive suspension setup). That said it needs to be because driving in Normal afterwards is dreadful. All Weather is pointless in the UK as the one week we have snow we’re all locked away at home in a complete panic because the world is about to end. So, just keep it in D to get the best out of the little Alfa.

Throughout the Mito range including the hot Cloverleaf version the main problem is the ride and the steering. The steering has quite an artificial feel about it and feels over-assisted in Normal mode. It’s better in Dynamic mode but there’s a lot of fidget and a lot of over-correction is needed. The ride is something you need to get used to. If you want to end up with your spine in kit form, the Mito is the car for you. If you choose ride comfort over anything else, choose the Punto.

Once you get used to the steering, the chassis is very good. It corners flat, turns in well and is coupled to a selection of slick, nicely shifting 5 and 6 speed manual gearboxes (except for the 1600 diesel). All the petrol engines are eager little things. Of all I’ve driven, I take a preference to the lowly normally aspirated 1.4 as it’s such an eager, rev-happy unit and, although not very quick or powerful (95bhp), it’s entertaining to drive it to within an inch of its life. The rest are turbo charged and when Mito was first introduced, 120 and 155 bhp turbo petrols were available, both absolute peaches. However, these have both been replaced by the new range of Multiair engines, rated at 135bhp and 170bhp in the range topping Cloverleaf. Which is my other favourite engine in the range. I really can’t be bothered to go into all the technical speak of the Multiair engine but in the 170 at least, it’s smooth, responsive and almost free of turbo lag.

The interior is well laid out and seems solidly built and a good driving position is easily found. Bluetooth connectivity comes on top end models and an MP3 compatible stereo comes on all models. Air con is standard throughout the range as are electric windows and mirrors.

However, if I am nitpicking with the car, I’m still not quite used to the frontal styling. It also annoys me that the speedometer view is partially blocked by the steering wheel. Rear seat space is so much at a premium that really all you can fit there are guitar plectrums. And the boot has a high sill. However the way it drives, the engines and the way the side and back end look, it’s a hit.

It will just be interesting to see what reliability and durability will be like.

So, what’s on the old score board Miss Ford?

Styling: 15/20
Performance: 18/20
Handling 15/20
Ride: 9/20
Comfort: 13/20

So, the Alfa scores 70 out of 100. Better than the subject of my first written road test, the VW Beetle. True, the Mito has some shortcomings and flaws – it’s steering is numb, the ride is hard, the 1.6 Diesel is rubbish, the front end styling is, in politeness, polarised, and the DNA is a gimmick. But it has other talents which are hard to ignore. It’s also cheaper than a Fiesta.