I wheel a Globe-Trotter suitcase with me on flights these days. To be honest, it’s not lightest or the most practical trunk on the carousel but hell, does it look good.

If you want to experience suitcase envy, just buy a Globe-Trotter. You can feel the Tumi buyers wishing they had gone for style rather than whopping price tag.

My case wasn’t cheap either but I can forgive all its little foibles because it makes me feel fab. And that should be the philosophy when buying an Alfa Romeo.

You have to accept the car’s strange ways and embrace the uniqueness of something that isn’t a Golf. Once that’s achieved, you’ll always yearn for an Alfa Romeo.

Italians love family more than EastEnders but the DNA switch in a Giulietta has nothing to do with the relations.

Everycar has to have driving modes these days it seems but the Alfa system was introduced way back in 2008.

Dynamic, normal or all-weather, it’s a neat way of changing the feel of the car at the flick of a switch.

It’s clever but I do long for a car that is one thing or the other – I don’t want to have to think about changing settings mid drive.

Sadly, I think most manufacturers are going this way. I was taught to drive more frugally by not pressing the accelerator so hard.

Now you can get the car to do it for you. I suppose that’s progress..

When I was 22, I rented a property on an estate where all the houses were the same. One day I came home, parked on the drive and went to open to front door.

For some reason, the key didn’t fit. Then I looked to my left and a strange man was looking at me out of the window… I’d driven into the wrong driveway – just because all the houses looked the same and I must have been on auto-pilot.

This is similar to sitting in the Giulietta for the first time. Everything looks sort of familar but it isn’t. The steering wheel is round and it has one of those sticks for changine gear, year the Alfa isn’t like a normal car.

In the short term this proves annoying, especially if you haven’t got the time to get acquainted. How do you mute the sat nav, why is the infotainment system complicated – and why do I turn the hazard warning lights on instead of adjusting the air vent?

This is pure Afla Romeo. The pedals are off-set and rather high – the seats have an old-fashioned lever adjustment, the list goes on…

It takes time but I like the Giulietta’s quirky ways. It was either designed by a very cool Italian – or somebody doing a lot of dope. Perhaps both – but either way, I like it.

I should declare an interest from the start. The first car I bought was an Alfa Romeo GT Junior. To me it looked like a mini Jag (well it was the 1980s), came loaded with Italian promise and was painted a sexy shade of red.

I had swapped it for the eminently sensible Datsun 120Y, given to me by my father. The Japanese car never missed a beat but was soulless. And bright orange.

Naturally I sold the Datsun when he wasn’t looking to bring the Alfa home. It was 12-years-old and riddled with rust. Soon things started to drop off and the front wings had been stuffed with filler.

Eventually, the Junior died on the driveway, the brakes locked up and it trashed the tarmac surface when a lorry came to tow it away.

I should know better but just the mention of Alfa still brightens my day. The Golf-sized Giulietta is far prettier than anything from VW, Ford or Vauxhall.

All those marques offer equally good cars but most of them cost more. They won’t make you feel good like an Alfa either, or prove quite so entertaining when the road clears ahead of you.

I know for sure that this top spec Super isn’t going to rust too…