For all the romance of the name and badge, all the false starts and failed promises, the Italian firm has long needed a proper vision and truly class-leading product to take the marque forward. If nothing else, Alfa has always enjoyed a strong goodwill factor among car enthusiasts even if that's never translated into volume sales in the showroom. And now this latest Giulia saloon has the unenviable task of going up against the likes of the Audi A4, BMW 3-Series and Mercedes C-Class in the notoriously fickle and snobbish company car market.