Alfa Romeo 159 2.2 JTS and 3.2 JTS V6 Q4
The official UK debut of the latest Alfa wagon. The 156 Sportwagon, says Simon Park, was something of an afterthought but its successor has benefited from proper family planning. It has moved on a long way from the much-loved 156, being bigger, more powerful and – most crucially, perhaps – better suspended.

Fiat Croma 2.4 20v Multijet
“Funny old bus, this,” says Tony Soper. “I don’t think that in 20 years’ time we’ll be fondly recalling our days with the Fiat Croma II and wishing we had never parted with it.” Yet Tony admits a soft spot for Fiat’s type four variant. He reckons that if you’re in the market for a roomy family car but don’t want a people carrier, this could make a lot of sense.

Alfa Romeo GTV 3.0 from Autodelta
T he Alfa GTV certainly isn’t lacking in the looks department, but there are some worthwhile improvements to be made to the dynamics. That’s what Alastair Cooper thought, when he bought his 3.0-litre V6 in 1999. Just a month old and with 1500 miles on the clock, the Alfa has proved addictive and reliable as an everyday car – and it’s even better since Autodelta strapped a supercharger to the six-pot lump in the nose.

Mille Miglia
If you haven’t been there, asks Johann Lemercier, can you really picture this? Three hundred and seventy-five thoroughbreds of the highest pedigree representing 30 years of the sport, charging hard for 1600km across the Italian Peninsula. For Italian classics aficionados and admirers of the golden age of motor racing, the hard fact is that no other event comes even remotely close to the Mille Miglia.

Maserati Quattroporte II
The second instalment in our series of five covers the period from 1967, when Maserati’s debts were bleeding the company dry. And then a lifeline materialised from the unlikely direction of Quai André Citroën. Simon Park drives one of the few survivors of Citroën’s abandoned project.

Ferrari F430 vs Lamborghini Gallardo SE
Steve Berry sums up his feature thus: “We’re not trying to establish the superiority of the 4.3-litre V8 Ferrari F430 over the 5-litre V10 Lamborghini Gallardo SE. Rather, we want to discover the differences and establish why anyone with a sum substantially in excess of six figures to spend on a supercar might favour the Maranello machine over the one from Sant’Agata. And because it wouldn’t stop raining in the UK, and we also wanted to eat ourselves half to death and drink lots of good wine, we decided we should go to Italy to find out.”

Modena Terra di Motori
Simon Park joins an Auto Italia-promoted Arena Travel tour to the motoring heartland of Modena. “To the uninitiated, the area might lack the romantic allure of Tuscany, the Lakes, Venice or the Amalfi coast. But if you read Auto Italia, then Modena, Maranello, Imola, Sant’Agata, etc, will have an almost mythological significance.”

Ferrari at Villa d’Este
Some of the finest cars in the world gather for the Concorso D’Eleganza at Villa d’Este. Keith Bluemel takes a more detailed look at the Ferrari contingent – and some extremely rare examples which he feels deserve a special mention.

Monaco Grand Prix Historique
“They gave the impression of a multi-coloured serpent wriggling with incredible swiftness.” So said a race reporter about watching the cars at the 1931 Monaco Grand Prix. Circuit safety? Denis Jenkinson had this to say in 1960: “If anyone started to consider the safety factor of that fantastic circuit, they would soon get a big headache.” Peter Collins catches up with competitors at the historic revival of this great event.

Colerne Sprint
Wessex Car Club’s Colerne Airfield Sprint: a competitive timed sprint with a multitude of classes catering for bog-standard road cars up to cunningly re-engineered Formula 3000-based single-seaters. Tony Soper heads off there for a spot of ‘back to basics’ motorsport – and takes the Editor’s treasured Fiat Moretti along for good measure.