Alfa Romeo 147 GTA
Why 6.8: A transverse Busso V6 stuffed into a hatchback nose, 250 hp fighting the front tires for a living — gorgeous, occasionally terrifying, and increasingly precious as the last hot hatch to wear that engine. Fragility and rising collector interest are starting to pull cars off the road and into garages.
Layout
Natural habitat
Ride comfort
Market value
Median asking price, good condition · €31k (2003) → €30k (2026), trending down · illustrative data
The long version
Alfa built the 147 GTA by turning the Busso V6 sideways — a transverse installation the engine was never really designed for — and stuffing 250 hp through the front wheels of a hatchback, torque steer included as standard equipment. Only 5,029 were built over three years before emissions rules caught up with the unfiltered V6, which makes this the last hot hatch anywhere to wear that engine, and that scarcity is starting to show in the values: a car that traded for ordinary hot-hatch money a decade ago has climbed hard since, pulling some examples out of daily rotation and into more careful ownership. The ones still driven are driven by people who specifically wanted the Busso howl over anything a four-cylinder rival could offer, torque steer be damned. It never came near a US showroom — Alfa had already left the market by the time this existed — so American interest is entirely aspirational, and Italian survivors increasingly get treated like the appreciating classic they are becoming rather than the used hatchback they used to be.