He simply wrote them off every year or so, mostly in the Black Forest. Mind you, he got them tax free.
*Sigh* I dunno if I have the balls to punt my dosh on an Alfa...
My coolest uncle had a great plan to avoid rust and other trouble with his Alfa Sprints back when I were a lad.
If it helps, I had a 147 2.0 Twin Spark for over 3 years & was a great car for city & motorway. Never had anything wrong with it & all mod cons (except Sat-Nav) came as standard.
I think the facelifted versions look great & if I didn't have little people, would have bought one over here.
heres a down to earth write up
Go for the car you like. Dont care about 'what kind of people' drive that sort of car. That logic is quite useless.
Personally I would say BMW hands down, and the service you get from the beemer shops here in CH is just simply amazing. Free service up to 100.000 km , excellent customer care, etc.
Sold my M3 for a 911 C4S , but it's less then a year and I'm already looking to swap back for another BMW (this time 6-series).
I can not agree to HAT's remark about BMW quality. BMW are famous for being 'cheap' in the lowend cars, but the quality you get in the 'high end' models just beats everything else on the market, including audi, mb and porsche.