[ OUR CARS ] 1999 Alfa Romeo 145 Cloverleaf
Owned by Nathan Chadwick (c/o classic.cars@bauermedia.co.uk)
Time owned One year, five months
Latest/total miles 1500/160,587
Latest/total costs £400/£6000
Previously Engine mounting dramas
Nathan was having fun cutting it up with Qashqais…
The day started well – I’d just had my 145 back for its yearly MoT and service, and I decided to enjoy it around the local country lanes.
Over the summer we’ve racked up plenty of miles in the Italian breadvan; the 145 may lack aircon and has an audio system that turns everything into a warbling mess, but it’s a fun place to be. It’s bright red, has a silly exhaust note and makes me feel like an adolescent again.
The car’s not very quick by modern standards, but even so, being left reeling by a turbodiesel crossover on the inside lane coming out of a dual carriageway was not on. So, I planted it in third gear and did the necessary.
As I later nosed the 145 into the garage, having turned off my obnoxiously loud and era-appropriate jungle compilation cassette, I heard a familiar knocking in time to the throttle pedal’s depression. The bottom end bearings had gone.
Alfa Romeo’s Twin Spark engine is a magnificent one when it works. It might not be hugely powerful – 150bhp – but it revs well, has a modicum of mid-range chunk and sounds great. However, the weak bottom end is a known issue and this, along with the need for a cambelt every three years at a significant percentage of the car’s value, is why so many 145s, 155s, 156s, GTVs and others have vanished.
While the bottom end could be rebuilt, the labour involved to ascertain whether that idea was a goer or not wouldn’t be worth it, so I’ve ultimately decided to go for a straight replacement.
…until his Twin Spark became not so bright
Given the Twin Spark’s fragility, it got me pondering the alternatives. Alfa Romeo did build a prototype V6 145 in the late Nineties using the 2.5-litre unit from the 156. I already own what that developed into – a 147GTA – so I’m not sure what the point would be.
The 145’s Tipo platform was shared across the Fiat Group’s entire model range, and it had me thinking of alternatives. How about the five-cylinder
turbo from the Fiat Coupe 20v? That’s 220bhp… just to begin with…
The 147GTA swallowing funds via its own cambelt needs (£1000), and the Maserati being, well, a Maserati, play into the reason I’ve decided to play it safe and simple with the Twin Spark replacement. After all, the reason I own two Alfa Romeo hot hatchbacks is because of my love for each engine. Besides, lobbing a 20v Turbo under the bonnet is one thing, but cooling it down and then harnessing that power would require quite significant investment in a torque-biasing diff, brakes and chassis bracing.
The 145 will get the love it needs in the near future. If funds allow, I may even get the paintwork done too; it deserves it. It might not deal the more powerful sucker punch of a more modern hot hatch, nor possess the same cornering abilities as a Pug 306 GTI-6, but the sheer joy of driving this pugnacious little red Alfa is something I’m already missing.
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