Alfa's 147 has recently received a much needed nip and tuck to refresh its looks and bring it up to date with the latest Alfa Romeo family face. We have tested many 147 variants over the last few years, but for one reason or another I've never spent a long period of time in the driver's seat myself. I've admired from afar, but this week with the car is a busy one and if its beauty is only skin deep I'm afraid that the weakness of the skeleton beneath will be laid bare.

The face-lift is a fine piece of work. The new nose drags the car bang up to date and makes an already different and alluring shape into a definitive stand out design. The 147 has never been a bland Eurobox or Japwagon, but it now really does make much of the competition look frumpy and boring. The hidden rear door handles continue to amuse and baffle as well; I wasn't the only person who was sucked in to try and find the catch to flip the front seat forward for access to the rear. It claimed an 80% success rate of kidding would-be rear seat passengers as the five-door genuinely does look like a slick three-door model.

Internally, the 147's interior continues to impress. Alfa's designers appear to have bench marked VW and Audi when they sat down to sketch out the 147's cabin and they've done a stunning job of living up to the high standards. In terms of ergonomics, materials and feel the interior is top drawer. Some of the switches, such as the heater controls, let it down a touch as they feel a little flimsy. It was a shame that the cup holder obscured the stereo display as well but overall it is a real success. The dials highlight their heritage with the labelling all being in Italian, and the subtle red lighting works well as well.

The 147 continues to live up to the badge on the road as well. Alfa Romeos should offer an enjoyable driving experience (it is meant to be a sporty brand at the end of the day) and thankfully the 147 JTD doesn't fail. The engine pulls with genuine grunt and kisses the red line as passionately as you'd expect an Italian would. The slick shifting six-speed box allows you either tap into the torque or milk the power, and the steering is well weighted and accurate. I prefer to short shift when driving diesels to ride the crest of the wave of torque; it also eliminates the drop off in power and the NVH issues sometimes encountered at the top end of the rev range. This latest JTD engine needs no such allowances and you can spank it if you so wish. For me, keeping the revs between 1,800 and 3,000rpm yields plenty of poke to exploit the chassis.

And exploit it you can. Disengage the nanny and the torque overwhelms the unloaded wheel with clumsy throttle applications to start with. You soon learn to respect the torque and feed it in smoothly. The optional alloys and low profile tyres endow the chassis with high grip levels but this isn't a case of the engineers saying that lots of grip equals good handling. The chassis is well sorted; understeer is the ultimate attitude but up to 90% effort the car handles confidently and capably and is very enjoyable. You soon get used to leaning hard on the strong brakes, turning in crisply and then being spat out from the apex on that wave of torque.

Off the twisties and onto the motorway and the 147 maintains its run of form. Quiet and refined, wind and road noise are well suppressed and the JTD engine hums away in the distance thanks to the long sixth gear, also the key to 45mpg fast motorway cruising. Indeed on gentle A-road excursions this figure slides comfortably into the 50s and only long periods around town and driving very hard indeed will see the return reduced to a figure that begins with a 3. Up to this point I couldn't find a real weak point in the new 147, but then something odd occurs.

I've been on the road for a couple of hours when "it" happens. I'm approaching a village where the road has been painted with stripes leading to the 30mph zone and the car begins to hop over the strips. There are only three strips but it does a Jonathan Edwards rivalling triple jump. Something is definitely not as it should be in the spring/damper area. I give it the benefit of the doubt and curse archaic traffic calming measures and continue on my way. An hour later, on the A1 and a large roundabout beckons with their regulation yellow lines to slow you down on the approach. Whoops! I appear to be in an impromptu matinee of Riverdance. The car just doesn't deal with the small but abrupt strips; it doesn't absorb them, just bounces off them. It is very strange, as the rest of the chassis seems so well sorted, how did they miss this foible? I don't think it could be specific to this car, though I'm eager to try another one to confirm my suspicions. Buyers should try different wheel and tyre combos to see if this helps.

This one issue blotted a very positive score card for me. It was a double bogey on the 18th when a par would've secured your lowest score ever. For me it undermined the excellence of the car and reduced it from star status to merely very good. For me the new 147 is a real surprise. It far exceeded my expectations and revealed itself to be a well-rounded and multi-talented car, with a truly alluring desirability. For me it offers something extra to cars such as the relatively clinical Golf and Focus. In all honesty it is a chassis tweak away from being a very good car indeed.