Alfa Romeo 164 (1987-1997)
Alfa&amp;#39;s last stand in the US was something different. For Alfa, long known for its superlative rear-drive chassis, now had a front-driver at the top of its line. With a handsome Pininfarina design, leather-lined cabin, and modernist dash, the luxury element was definitely in place, and much to American Alfistis&amp;#39; delight, the car lost none of its Italian charm, with a highly responsive, splendid-sounding, multi-cam V-6 in place of Alfa&amp;#39;s venerable four, and steering as wonderfully communicative as ever. In fact, it had the whole shebang covered, including the new model&amp;#39;s unchanged relationship with reliability, which is to say, something akin to Silvio Berlusconi&amp;#39;s commitment to teenage chastity. In fairness, it must be said 164s will run to 200,000 miles and more with reasonable maintenance, something you can&amp;#39;t say about its predecessors. We like earlier examples for their purer lines and minimum of plastic body-cladding, but also look out for the ultra-rare Q4 model with all-wheel-drive, a handful of which dribbled into America just before Alfa turned out the lights here in 1995: the ultimate in obscure, early-&amp;#39;90s Italian car cachet.