MiTo is magical... warts and all

"Hey mate, thassa BEWdiful li'l Alfa ya got."

If the opinion of the drunk guy at Maylands Coles at 11am on a recent Sunday is any indication, Alfa Romeo's plan is working perfectly.

About a year ago, the Italian icon repositioned itself to be more affordable without sacrificing what makes the brand what it is. As the smallest and most affordable model in its range, the new MiTo stands to play a major part in implementing that strategy.

As my red-nosed mate pointed out, the affordable Mito still has striking design. With its almost feline-like front fascia and bold rear design, it certainly pops when parked among more sedately designed cars. The strip of red, white and green above the windscreen was a nice touch.

And there are plenty of other quirks to distinguish the MiTo from others once you hop inside. The fuel gauge, tachometer and temp gauge are all in Italian (benzina, giri and acqua) but the biggest eccentricity of the TwinAir variant is under the bonnet. It has the same 0.9-litre two-cylinder turbo-petrol unit found in the Fiat 500, paired to a six-speed manual gearbox - thankfully, Alfa passed on the rather terrible robotised manual option in the 500.

The 77kW engine takes some getting used to. It certainly doesn't power off the line and if you don't keep the revs at or above about 2500rpm it can struggle to push through and get up to speed.

Here's the thing, though: if you can keep the revs and make quick gear changes, you're rewarded with decent response from the engine and, even better, a spunky blast of an exhaust note.

The MiTo comes with Alfa's DNA dynamics-select system. There's little difference between the three modes but Dynamic coaxes a bit better response from the engine so will likely be the most popular setting.

Now there are also some negatives here, as there generally are with most Alfas. Some are minor, such as the slightly heavy steering, the small footwell making driving in work shoes a bit tricky, or the woefully inaccurate exterior thermometer (it claimed Perth recently had back-to-back days of 47 and 45C).

Others are a little worse. On a few occasions the remote control refused to lock the car and the stop/start system could get a bit confused when inching along in heavy traffic, switching off at inopportune times when it really shouldn't have, considering what was going on with the clutch.

The low price tag means the TwinAir MiTo is pretty bare inside, with few storage options and some weird design - a bottle in the cup holder gets in the way of putting the car in first gear; you plug in your iPod above the handbrake but then have nowhere to put it.

Plus it's pretty noisy inside and the ride is so firm as to border on harsh.

These are also the first things you'll notice when you set off in the MiTo, before the cool exhaust note or Italian words, so it risks giving a bad first impression.

And yet I soon came to enjoy these traits and the MiTo as a whole. Keeping the revs up to make the two-cylinder engine stay "alive" leant itself to enthusiastic driving and tearing down the road with the exhaust parping, while everything around you rattles and bystanders turn to look, quickly becomes enjoyable.

Well, maybe "tearing away" is a bit much - it does 0-100km/h in 11.4 seconds, after all - but it's still a driving experience, one that brings a smile and used to cost a lot more than $22,500.

VERDICT

You’re going to have to look past the MiTo’s long list of oddities for it to strike a chord with you. But if it does get under your skin, you’ll have a stylish, affordable Italian city car you’ll enjoy driving.

ALFA ROMEO MITO

Model: TwinAir

Price: $22,500

Engine: 0.9-litre two-cylinder turbo petrol

Outputs: 77kW/145Nm

Transmission: Six-speed manual

Thirst: 4.2L/100km

COMPETITORS

FIAT 500

Model: Lounge

Price: $20,300

Engine: 0.9-litre two-cylinder turbo-petrol

Outputs: 63kW/145Nm

Transmission: Five-speed robotised manual

Thirst: 4.7L/100km

PEUGEOT 208

Model: Allure

Price: $21,990

Engine: 1.6-litre four-cylinder petrol

Outputs: 88kW/160Nm

Transmission: Five-speed manual

Thirst: 5.8L/100km

RENAULT CLIO

Model: Dynamique

Price: $23,290

Engine: 1.2-litre four-cylinder turbo-petrol

Outputs: 88kW/190Nm

Transmission: Six-speed automatic

Thirst: 5.2L/100km