Your pen is hovering over the dotted line on a sales contract for an Alfa Romeo 159 Sportwagon. This is the car you always promised yourself, you reason. Life's too short not to own an Alfa at some point and this seems as good a time as any. You glance over to the demonstrator car in the showroom. You're right. It's beautiful in a way no estate car has any right to be. But before you put pen to paper, ask yourself a question and answer it honestly. Would you really buy a car purely on the basis of looks?

You're not that superficial are you? The trouble with this car is that its styling tends to steamroller all other concerns. Your neighbours may label you a narcissist as they mutter jealously and lumber away in their more aesthetically-challenged wheels. It's certainly true that there will be any number of people who will buy the 159 Sportwagon on the basis of a picture they've seen in the pages of a glossy magazine. Some cars have that 'want one' factor by the barrow load. The 159 Sportwagon has room in the back for a whole lot more of it than most but here we'll make the case for the car if it had a face like a sack of spanners.

Let's start with practicality. Rarely an Alfa byword, this is one area addressed moderately well in the 159 Sportwagon. I say moderately because, as an 'estate car', its predecessor, the 156 Sportwagon was, and let's not get too delicate here, a joke. With its rear seats in place, it possessed less useable luggage space than the saloon on which it was based. It had other redeeming qualities insofar as it was better looking and, well, better looking but beyond that, it was never the most pragmatic choice. Nor is the 159 Sportwagon, if your blend of practicality involves lugging wardrobes or cubic hectares of garden waste. Where the 159 Sportwagon does move the game forward, albeit moderately, is that despite having the same overall length as the 159 saloon, luggage carrying capacity actually rises. With 445 cubic litres when the rear seats are in place, it's only 15-litres shy of a 3 Series Touring and a whopping 80 litres up on the 156 Sportwagon. At least now it can justify its existence as something other than a pretty face.

"It's beautiful in a way no estate car has any right to be"

Whereas many other manufacturers have learned all sorts of tricks from building MPV-style vehicles and have incorporated these into their estate cars, Alfa Romeo remain resiliently old school. The rear seats may be pleasantly light and easy to flip forward but the seat squabs stay fixed, which means that the seat backs won't fold flat. This limits the overall carrying capacity. Some estate cars also feature neat touches like fold out compartment dividers and chromed steel floor rails so that heavy goods can slide in without destroying the carpet, even pull out loading platforms. You don't get that with the 159 Sportwagon but that's not to say the Alfa is just a show pony. As well as an auxiliary power supply in the luggage bay, there's a light, a pull cover and, best of all, the basic shape of the load area is broad, flat and low with no intrusion from the rear suspension. The actual useable space may well be greater than those with greater quoted capacity in cubic litres. The rear seats split 60/40 and there's a fold down section in the middle that's great for carrying longer items. There's even a small cargo net on one side that's a handy place to store gloves, a torch or other bits and pieces.

Prices (which start at £19,650) are around £1,100 over and above what Alfa Romeo will charge for the equivalent 159 saloon and most canvassed seem to think the Sportwagon shape even better looking than the sharky 159 saloon. That's quite some compliment.

It's not worth pretending that the Alfa 159 can hold a candle to a BMW 3 Series as an enthusiast's performance car. Its front wheel drive chassis precludes that but with all-wheel drive versions set to be introduced, the 159 has an advantage when it comes to all-weather security. How Audi must be galled. First Jaguar steal their thunder with the all-wheel drive X-TYPE, Volvo show their S60 with drive to both ends and then Alfa unveil the Q4 four-wheel drive variants of the 159. Perhaps the 3 Series is the wrong car against which to benchmark the 159. It seems a more natural competitor to top-end Honda Accords and Saab 9-3s. This 'sub premium' compact executive sector still yields significant returns and is populated by cars like the Volvo S60 and the Jaguar X-TYPE, cars which the Alfa compares very favourably to.

Five engines are on offer, split between two diesels and three petrol powerplants. The entry-level diesel option is the 150bhp 1.9-litre Multijet unit, while the range-topping diesel variant is the 2.4-litre 200bhp Multijet JTD. This is an absolute stormer, capable of zipping to 60mph in a tad over 8 seconds.

Petrol engines start with a 1.8-litre MPI 140bhp four, with a 2.2-litre 185bhp JTS powerplant above that. Of more interest to serious petrol heads is the 260bhp 3.2-litre V6, based on a Holden unit from Australia and rebuilt to a special Alfa recipe. Four wheel drive will be an option for V6 buyers. The manual transmission offered has been improved from the lazy, long-throw change of the 156 but there's also the choice of a six-speed automatic and a six-speed Selespeed sequential manual.

The architecture of the 159's cabin is perhaps a little disappointing, offering an evolution of the 156's fascia which looked great in '98 but which now looks a little dated compared to the more imaginative designs. Build quality seems better than before and rear legroom and headroom have both improved, although you'd opt for a Saab or Volvo if this was a priority.

There's a lot to like about the Alfa 159 Sportwagon but to truly appreciate this car, one has to first accept the depth of your superficiality. After that, the rest is easy.

TOP 5 159 DEALS

The results below show the top 159 deals on buyacar

	Alfa Romeo 159 1.9 JTDM 16v Lusso 5dr Sportwagon Estate
	ETR	Mthly £377	Saving £2,878	Price £20,862
	Alfa Romeo 159 2.4 JTDM Lusso 5dr QTRONIC Sportwagon Estate
	ETR	Mthly £445	Saving £3,467	Price £24,223
	Alfa Romeo 159 3.2 V6 JTS Q4 Lusso 5dr QTRONIC Sportwagon Estate
	ETR	Mthly £520	Saving £4,004	Price £27,431
	Alfa Romeo 159 1.9 JTDM 16v Lusso 5dr QTRONIC Sportwagon Estate
	ETR	Mthly £403	Saving £3,088	Price £22,102
	Alfa Romeo 159 1.8 MPI Lusso 5dr Sportwagon Estate
	ETR	Mthly £346	Saving £2,541	Price £18,999

typical 10.17% APR

PCP finance quote over 48 months,  10,000 miles pa,  deposit of £1000