Intro
Welcome to the first installment of me being stupid and reviewing about 100 cars in a year! Weeeee! Anyways, today is the wonderful Alfa Romeo GTA and the big bad Chevelle SS-454.

Sprint
Alfa Romeo. I quite like those two words; since they mean something wonderful. Something glorious. Something simply..delightful.

Anyhow, this little Alfa is just..you just have to drive it to understand. The sound. Good god, the sound! That little straight-4 is just...just beautiful. In the higher revs it's just delicious. Often I find myself keeping it in high revs just to hear the little lump produce its exotic, beautiful engine note.

Besides the wonderful engine note, I know you're all wondering: what the devil is the Alfa like to drive?!
Well, ask no more, because it is a fickle cornbeef to drive. Until you learn that it likes being driven very smoothly and delicately. And when you start doing that, well, let me tell you, the Alfa just devours corners like they just ain't no thing. It makes you feel like Moss or Fangio or Senna. The GTA has skinny little tires and 47 year old tire technology but...it just carves around the corners. That might have something to do with the fact the little Italian weighs just 1,676 pounds. Once you grab a hold of how the Alfa drives though, it's just silly how well it can really corner. It feels..right when it goes around a corner smoothly. The Alfa, then, is a lovely, but difficult to learn, handler.

And it's quick, too. With just 1,676 pounds to haul, the 115 horsepower from the engine means it can get to 60 in around 8.7 seconds. That's faster than that hilariously inept DMC-12 and still quick even by today's standards, since Alfa's own MiTo does it in over 9 seconds, as does most other current compact cars. It's not the lightning quick 2.7 or so seconds the Veyron SS does it in, but still, for a 47 year old car with 115hp, it's quick enough.

All in all the little Alfa is a wonderful little driver's car, and stock is one of my favourite cars in the game. You can pick one up for 60,000 credits if you want one. I'd suggest increasing tire width and compound as well as some power, but be careful because the little beauty only weighs 1600 pounds.

Super Sport
I've never really been a fan of Chevy besides the Corvette and Corvair, to be honest. But there is one Chevy that I adore as much as those two, and it's the Chevelle. The Camaro's bigger, better brother. And this one has a monstrous 454 in it.

Which means what? Well, it has absolutely insane amounts of power. 450 of them to be exact. What's more? 500 of those "torque" things that everyone's so fond of. What I'm saying is this thing has absurd amounts of power. Where the big bad Hemis were making a pitiful 425hp, Chevy came along and went "HA!" and then wizarded in a huge engine and made the Chevelle insane. Maybe too insane, because this thing is stupidly nose heavy. If you aren't careful you'll understeer into the nearest thing that will kill you. Since it's so nose-heavy, you'll need to trail-brake to get it around corners. And it weighs 3,799lbs. Obviously this means the Chevelle is bad and you should feel bad if a corner comes up, right?

No. You should feel excited! Since the Chevelle is actually surprisingly good at handling corners. Coming right from the little Alfa, the Chevelle does feel much, much, much heavier, but after a little time, the big Chevelle doesn't seem so big any more. When you get used to its large mass, and start trail-braking, the Chevelle can actually turn in and hold a corner pretty well. It's not amazing, but it's surprisingly good enough. Even on this series's power lap track, Iberian Short Reverse, the Chevelle handles the smaller corners fairly well. I'm still in shock at how well the Chevelle can turn.

And the Chevelle can go, too. But that was obvious, because 450hp/500lb-ft means even at almost 4,000 pounds, the big Chev will rocket off in to the 60mph sunset in 6.1 seconds.

Thus, Chevy's only good muscle car (cue rabid Camaro fans in 3..2..1...) is a wonderful car. Just don't feed it any more damn power, it has more than enough. Just reduce its weight and increase the tire size, and you have yourself a very good car. And that's coming from a Ford fan.


Stay tuned for next week, where I'm heading to the UK and Japan to drive two cars that look very similar!