AutoItalia – July 2019

ALFA ROMEO 156 SUPERCHARGED

tiring on longer journeys.

This is a great ‘Q’ car because it looks just like a

standard GTA. Well, almost. There’s a non-standard

bee-sting aerial on the roof and an aftermarket array

of reversing sensors on the back bumper (both of

which look a bit odd, I reckon). Far more likeable is

the non-standard quad-pipe exhaust by Ragazzon,

which sounds lovely without being excessively noisy;

fruity but civilised.

With 75,000 miles on the clock, this car feels tight –

not too surprising since it’s been mechanically very

well cared for (it has an extensive history with the

Alfa Workshop from 2010 to date) and has recently

had a new cambelt fitted (vital for any Busso engine

owner’s peace of mind).

This is a six-speed manual GTA, and the gearbox

works very well indeed. New you could order

Selespeed semi-automatic, but very few people did in

the UK. I’m not sure how well Selespeed and a

supercharger might work, either...

Thankfully, this car has the larger 330mm front brake

conversion, something that the Alfa Workshop did. This

is an improvement that Alfa itself actually rolled out on

the GTA after a while; the GTV-type 305mm discs fitted

to early cars were definitely below par, so the 330mm

acknowledged expert on supercharging Alfas. Not only

does it have a slinky supercharger (neatly tucked away

in the bumper area) but larger fuel injectors and an ECU

remap, too. As an aside, Alfa Workshop informs me that

ECUs for 3.2-litre Alfas are no longer obtainable, but it’s

got a workaround for it. Phew!

This car has been on the dyno and, as a result, we

can confirm that its power output fully matches

Autodelta’s original claim for the engine: 320hp. To

drive, it certainly feels like it’s got every one of those

320 horses. However, it’s not really the outright power

that impresses – it’s the torque. The supercharger

simply adds torque everywhere. Unlike a turbocharger,

whose effects come in only after a delay and only

above a certain rev threshold, the supercharger is at

work all the time, at all rev ranges, and suffers from no

‘lag’ whatsoever. Its torque delivery is lusciously linear:

always there, and the higher up the rev band you go,

the more you get. Lovely!

All you hear is a whistle – yes a whistle (rather like a

turbo in fact), and quite unlike the whine you get from,

say, a Mini Cooper S. There’s even a bit of chatter on

the overrun, a bit like a turbo wastegate. The

supercharger’s persistent, ever-present noise is not

unpleasant, but I can see that it might become a little

“

Torque delivery is lusciously linear. The higher up

the rev band you go, the more you get. Lovely!

”

GTA looks pretty much
standard but its power
output of 320hp puts it in
a different league