It's easy to think of Alfa Romeo as being a maker of cars with screaming engines which work at their best only when they're making a noise like the last three minutes of a Rossini overture. Alfa has never been a major seller in the UK, and in the normal way of things the cars which have sold best have been the cheaper ones, which in turn tend to be the ones with the smaller, higher-revving engines.
Those of you with a more comprehensive knowledge of the Italian manufacturer and its history will be aware that there's another Alfa tradition - that of building cars with engines which hardly need revving at all, but which produce storming power (and a deeper-throated but no less evocative sound) from low engine speeds. In the case of the Brera, the forthcoming 3.2-litre V6 model will follow exactly this route, but for the moment the 2.4-litre JTM turbo diesel covers the ground nicely.
Full review here