1987 Alfa Romeo Milano Tested: Alfa's Comeback Kid

View PhotosDick Kelley|Car and DriverFrom the December 1986 issue of Car and Driver.When it comes to building Milanos, Alfa Romeo has some catching up to do. The original Milano, though introduced many year ago, still boasts a distinctive, low­-slung shape, contemporary lightweight construction, and an interior tasty enough to qualify as a little bit of heaven. As mil­lions of aficionados can tell you, it’s one sweet cookie—and Pepperidge Farm is still selling every Milano wafer the factory can bake up.Alfa Romeo would be more than happy to repeat cookie history with its all-new Milano—and it had better. After all, we al­most lost Alfa a few years back. By 1982, annual U.S. sales of this proud marque had dwindled to merely 2200 cars, or about two days’ worth of Cavalier production. The home office began wondering if America was worth the effort. View PhotosDick Kelley|Car and DriverIn mid-1983, headquarters sent a man over to find out. It was up to Ernesto Vettore either to shut the U.S. operation down for good or to jump-start the compa­ny and get it on the road to recovery. It came that close. The new Milano is the weapon Vettore’s weary troops have been waiting for. “The Milano is the rebirth of Alfa in the U.S.,” crows public-relations man Craig Mor­ningstar. Alfa sales have actually been on the rebound here over the past few years—4700 cars were sold in 1985—but those numbers are no longer enough. “We want volume now,” says Morningstar flatly. “We expect to sell 5000 Milanos by the end of 1986, and 10,000 a year after that.” With other new models coming down the pipeline, Alfa figures to retail 20,000 to 30,000 cars a year by 1990—about five times its current sales. View PhotosDick Kelley|Car and DriverView PhotosDick Kelley|Car and DriverIf Alfa hopes to expand beyond the tiny group of die-hard enthusiasts who have been waving the Quadrifoglio flag for de­cades, the Milano had best be one tasty cookie. On the same supermarket shelf are a wealth of world-class sports sedans, from the Honda Accord at the low-priced end to the Audi 5000 at the top. The Milano will venture into this crowd­ed market dressed in four-door sheetmetal only, but that’s really no handicap, since four-doors are where the heavy action is in the sports-sedan class. Three versions will be available: Silver (base), Gold (mid-lev­el), and Platinum (full-luxe).
No matter which precious-metal model becomes the favorite, the new Milano will not go unnoticed. At a time when most carmakers are turning out variations on the teardrop, Alfa’s new entry is resolutely boxy—though not in the American or Jap­anese fashion. This is the Italian interpre­tation of the creased-and-folded school, done in a way no one else can, with a kind of jacket-over-the-shoulder sexiness that makes you look twice. Is it ugly or avant-­garde? The Milano, it seems to us, walks the line perfectly. View PhotosDick Kelley|Car and DriverAlthough its sheetmetal is straight off of the Italian-market Alfa 75, introduced last year, the Milano is more American than any other Alfa in history. “The way it used to be,” says veteran product planner Hank Bernstein, “was that Alfa simply sent us whatever they were making for Europe and said, ‘Sell it.’ Now, they’re asking us about our marketing needs.” Bernstein points out that the trim level of the top-of­-the-line 75 can’t match the appointments of even the base Milano. Luxuries such as velour and suede upholstery, rear power windows, heated front seats, and heated electric mirrors aren’t even available in the European cars. In addition, Alfa upgraded the 75’s air conditioning specifically for the U.S. And though the 75 is available with a variety of engines, only the most powerful of them—the 154-hp, 2.5-liter V-6—is installed in the Milano.
The rest of the Milano’s mechanical building blocks are shared with the 75. The unitized body is home to a front­-mounted engine that feeds its power to a rear transaxle for distribution to the rear wheels. Lumps and bumps are filtered by unequal-length control arms and torsion bars up front; at the rear, coil springs, a de Dion rigid axle integral with two diagonal trailing arms, and a transverse Watt link­age are on duty. The handling balance is fine-tuned with anti-roll bars front and rear. Four-wheel disc brakes—with ABS on the Platinum edition—do the stopping. For all the American influence factored into the Milano, its essential Italianness comes through like a whiff of fresh pepper­oni. The cabin of the Platinum version, for instance, is a controlled anarchy of shapes and textures that could never have come from America, Germany, or Japan. Only the Italians could combine swatches of suede, a complex sculpture of a dash, a U­-shaped hand brake, a velour headliner, and a hidden glove box and have it all come out looking so stylish. Some of the details, such as the beautiful three-spoke steering wheel and the carefully integrated door handles, are inspired. Others, such as the overhead power-window switches, need more thought. View PhotosDick Kelley|Car and DriverEven if you close your eyes after sliding into the captain’s seat, you’ll never take the Milano for anything but an Italian stallion. Despite a tilt-and-telescope steering wheel and a reasonably adjustable bucket (in­cluding an electric recliner), the driving position is too close to the classic Italian arms-out stance for us. Actually, the problem is more a relative shortage of legroom. Six-footers would need the pedals pushed forward a good three inches for optimum comfort. On the other hand, for a car that’s four and one-half inches shorter than an Accord, there’s acceptable rear-seat room, and the rear seats themselves are quite supportive.Whatever the pluses, minuses, and question marks concerning the Milano’s interior and exterior design, it’s obvious this is the best-built Alfa ever to come our way. The huge leaps made in technology since the aging GTV6 and Spider were de­signed allowed the engineers to build in a level of quality not possible before. View PhotosDick Kelley|Car and DriverView PhotosDick Kelley|Car and DriverAnd there’s more, according to product planner Bernstein. “Alfa has established a separate assembly line for U.S. cars, some­thing that we’ve never had before. They’ve tried to move their best people over to the U.S. line. And now every car is also road­-tested for 25 miles before it leaves the fac­tory, as part of the pre-delivery inspection procedure.” The extra care shows. In quality of fit and finish, our test car was eons ahead of previous Alfas and fully competitive with the most solidly built cars from Europe and Japan. In the course of our test, nothing loosened up, fell off, or felt as if it was about to self-destruct—which is a lot more than we can say for Alfa’s older products.
When corporate priorities shift to quali­ty, other concerns sometimes slip through the cracks. We’re pleased to report that, in this case, driving enjoyment isn’t one of them. The Milano owns the zest we’ve come to expect from Italian cars. It’s not possessed of blinding speed or race-car handling. It’s simply enjoyable to drive. View PhotosDick Kelley|Car and DriverA good portion of the satisfaction comes from the engine. From the first blip of the throttle, you know that the Milano’s all-alu­minum, 2.5-liter V-6 is special. This is the same unit that powers the GTV6, so it’s been around a while, but its 154 horsepower puts it up there with the Porsche 944’s 2.5-liter four-and light-years ahead of any U.S. engine in its displacement class. The V-6’s muted frenzy is well worth keeping the windows down for. Unfortunately, the en­gine is laboring against nearly a ton and a half of automobile, so acceleration is mere­ly brisk; 60 mph comes up in 9.3 seconds. Tick for tick, the Milano is no quicker than an Accord LX-i, though it keeps on pulling to an impressive 127 mph. If the transaxle shifted with just a little less effort, the drivetrain would be magic. There’s lots of goodness baked into the chassis as well. The suspension is firm enough to keep the tires planted on rough roads and soft enough so it never beats on you. And when it’s time to tackle life’s twists and turns, the Milano is ready, able, and willing. View PhotosDick Kelley|Car and DriverView PhotosDick Kelley|Car and Driver The Milano’s steering system, though, would benefit from a lesson or two from the big-name autobahn runners. Its undo­ing is its inability to hold a steady course on the highway without constant corrections from the driver. This lack of straight-ahead sense, coupled with the shortage of driver’s-side legroom for tall types, pre­vents the Milano from being the long-dis­tance cruiser that it could be. These gripes notwithstanding, we still find the Milano an intriguing car. When we drove our test car around town, civilian heads swiveled in sufficient numbers to confirm our opinion of its wrapper. First-­time riders agreed on the interior’s sensu­ousness. And no one figured the stubby shape for anything but all-new. View PhotosDick Kelley|Car and DriverThat leaves us feeling that the Milano, at twenty grand with all the trimmings, is a good car at a fair price. And if a Platinum Milano is a little rich for your blood, there are two lower rungs on the Quadrifoglio ladder—priced at $14,500 and $12,800—that deliver the essence without the big monthly payments. Considered in that light, Alfa’s new cookie may be even sweet­er than our first taste indicates.CounterpointsAs a $14,000 immigrant with good pa­pers, the Alfa Milano makes plenty of sense: SOHC V-6 engine, apart-from-­the-crowd styling, a commendable top speed. The Platinum package, however, makes a little less sense. You get the same V-6 engine, the same wacko styling, and the same top speed—with a 50-percent higher price tag! In case you haven’t checked, that’s well past the Nissan Maxima SE’s price and in the thick of some very serious competition: Audi 4000CS Quattro, Audi 5000S, Acura Legend, etc.Even with its anti-lock brakes, leather upholstery, and metallic paint, the most magnificent of Milanos doesn’t carry the cachet to play ball with the big boys. Its combination of accelerating and corner­ing abilities is good but not great. Its braking is beautiful and its interior de­cor delightful, but the relationship of the seat, pedals, and steering wheel tells me to stop the Milano and order espres­so. A turbo motor thrown into the bar­gain would make the twenty-grand price tag, the crazy-quilt styling, and the Mario Andretti driving position a whole lot more palatable. —Don Sherman I’ve got a question, and the answer can only come from our trusty Car and Driver advertising salespeople. They have re­searched all of you readers right down to your finest follicles, so they should be able to tell me how many of you are chimpanzees. Has Alfa ever got a Milano for hard-driving chimps! If you answer to “Cheetah,” you’ll fit right in. All it takes is arms long enough to encircle two bushels of bananas and legs so short your feet will never reach the peels, because you walk on your knuckles. Slip (with or without the help of peels) behind the wheel of the Milano and you simians will feel right at home. For normally proportioned Homo sapiens—which is to say, those of us with average arms and medium legs—sitting at this car’s faraway wheel on its boxy seat with your arms stretched out of their sockets and your legs folded dou­ble is pure torture. And certainly no way to control a rather quick car cursed with overassisted steering. —Larry GriffinThis car, it is Italian. Buckle up behind the wheel, start the engine, and listen as it tries to seduce you with the strains from her silky six. Run up through the box and nick the redline in each gear. It makes lovely music, yes? It’s a powerful temptress, that engine. Few powerplants sing such a sexy song. If you want a front-row seat for this me­chanical symphony, though, you’ll have to put up with a few nagging quirks. The seats, for example, offer little fore-and-aft support. Steering is best done with the fingertips: the Milano doesn’t like rough handling. The sus­pension is surprisingly harsh, given the lack of roll control it provides. And de­spite the Milano’s sedan aspirations, there’s not enough headroom for this six-footer to sit bolt upright in back. But these are minor troubles if you’ve already succumbed to the charms of that engine. One trip to the redline could convince you that this car has no faults at all. —Arthur St. AntoineSpecificationsSpecifications
1987 Alfa Romeo Milano
Vehicle Type: front-engine, rear-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 4-door sedan
PRICE

Base/As Tested: $19,480/$19,830
Options: metallic paint, $350
ENGINE

SOHC V-6, aluminum block and heads, port fuel injection
Displacement: 152 in3, 2492 cm3
Power: 154 hp @ 5600 rpm
Torque: 152 lb-ft @ 3200 rpm 
TRANSMISSION
5-speed manual
CHASSIS

Suspension, F/R: control arms/live axle
Brakes, F/R: 10.5-in vented disc/9.8-in disc
Tires: Michelin MXV
195/55VR-15
DIMENSIONS

Wheelbase: 98.8 in
Length: 173.9 in
Width: 64.2 in
Height: 55.1 in
Passenger Volume, F/R: 43/38 ft3
Trunk Volume: 10 ft3
Curb Weight: 2995 lb
C/D TEST RESULTS

60 mph: 9.3 sec
1/4-Mile: 16.9 sec @ 83 mph
100 mph: 28.5 sec
Top Gear, 30–50 mph: 10.2 sec
Top Gear, 50–70 mph: 11.4 sec
Top Speed: 127 mph
Braking, 70–0 mph: 198 ft
Roadholding, 300-ft Skidpad: 0.77 g 
C/D FUEL ECONOMY

Observed: 19 mpg
EPA FUEL ECONOMY

Combined/City/Highway: 19/16/23 mpg  
C/D TESTING EXPLAINED
Source: caranddriver.com