Sit down, please. I'm going to ask for forgiveness in a moment, because I'm about to do something that is utterly shocking for a professional motoring journalist. I'm going to recommend you buy a car, which I haven't driven yet - which no one outside of the company that makes it has driven yet. A car which, in all fairness, might be utter shite to drive or appallingly expensive and difficult to own. In fact, given the history of some of its forebears, that's actually quite a likely outcome.
But if I may divest myself of my Sweaty Cloak of Objective Journalism for a moment, you have to go out and order an Alfa Romeo Giulia. There's no rush, as it won't be available in the Irish market till some time next year, but the more I think about it (and believe me; I think about this stuff A LOT) you, and all your friends, and me simply have to buy one. I've put away €5 already. Well, it's a start...
I'll take some questions now. No, I'm not being paid by Alfa Romeo or Fiat-Chrysler Automobiles to write this. No, I have not been bribed with the offer of a long-term-test Giulia, no questions asked, give it back when you fancy, nudge nudge, wink wink. No, Sergio Marchionne has not kidnapped my children and is not holding them for ransom in a distant castle.
So why am I doing this? Why am I telling you to buy a car which I've only seen so far in photos and which may well turn out not to be as good as its major rivals?
Have you ever seen Invasion of the Body Snatchers - either the original black-and-white Kevin McCarthy version or the much more lurid Technicolor remake starring the incomparable Donald Sutherland? Anyway, it's a tale of a softly-softly takeover of the human race by pod-people; people who aren't people any more but simply want us to become... one of them. Resistance is futile etc.
That's what it's like in the car world at the moment. Essentially, the German car industry is now so utterly dominant, at least in Europe, that there's no point in even thinking about buying anything else. Buy a Golf, buy a 3 Series, buy an A6, buy an S-Class - it's easy, it's painless and then you too will be... one of us.
I've no axe to grind here. I love Germany as a country. I even go there on holidays sometimes (yes, really). The people are utterly lovely, everything works perfectly and Berlin is, way ahead of anywhere else, my favourite city on the planet.
I like German cars too. BMWs are almost invariably nice to drive, Volkswagens are sensible and solid, Audis always feel lovingly well made and I have a persistent itch to own a Mercedes E-Class estate. I can't explain that last one adequately; it's almost like an instinct.
But, I have become depressed lately at their ubiquity, partially because it makes my job so tedious. No matter what car I test drive, or assess or try out it always comes back to the Germans. "Hmmmmm. This is fine, but a Golf/3 Series/A6/S-Class is better..." will go my thought process.
And that's awful. It's maybe unfair to castigate Volkswagen and the rest for doing the job better than others, but I'm sick of it. I want to recommend a French car, a British car, an American car and, yes most definitely and Italian car.
As has been said, you're not a true car nut until you've owned an Alfa Romeo. Yes, that's my hand up. I had an Alfasud Sprint Coupe. It never worked for the entire time I had it. I took it to pieces and attempted to put it back together again. Eventually I sold what was left. But, for all the disappointment and frustration, I had that leather fob with the crest of Milan on a little enamel badge, and attached to it was a key, which could open a world of motoring passion and excitement - if I could have got the engine to work - which I could not.
Nevertheless, I am an Alfisti through and through. I've owned one, driven others on track, travelled right across Europe in one and always come back wanting more. Significantly, an Alfa is also the only car ever to leave me stranded at the side of the road, waiting for the AA - a 50 cent temperature sensor in a 156 press car I was driving failed and the car refused to go anywhere without it. Ah well...
I expect that the new Giulia will be rather more solidly built. I expect that Sergio Marchionne, no fool he, has assembled Fiat-Chrysler's best and brightest to engineer and design the Giulia because he knows Alfa is in the last chance saloon and it's way past time, gentlemen, please. If the Giulia fails then Alfa is dead. The cold hand of corporate reality will rest, lightly and briefly on its shoulder, and then the scythe will fall.
And I just don't want that to happen. If it does, then we've all become pod-people. We're all just going to buy the same car as the people next door, or them over the road. Everyone will drive something dark grey, or black with a Germanic badge and that will be it. The end of multiplicity will be upon is. Everyone will have a really good car and that's just not right.
Hopefully, the Giulia will also be good, great even. Hopefully, it will have tight-as-a-drum build quality, handle and steer with astonishing deftness and we already know that its Ferrari-sourced V6 turbo engine howls and wails like a mobile Foo Fighters concert. Hopefully, it will be sufficiently brilliant that this column and its pleading will not be necessary, and Alfa will finally taste the sort of sustained sales success that the greatness of its name and heritage both deserve.
Hopefully.
Please buy one anyway.