I’ve always wanted to love an Alfa Romeo. Given that they are beautiful and stylish in equal measure, with an illustrious history to boot, you wouldn’t have thought it would be too difficult. But I’ve never managed the head-over-heels infatuation that usually comes as standard with the rest of Italy’s sporting marques.

Take the current Alfa Romeo Spider, for example. It’s one of the prettiest cars to grace our roads and looks achingly attractive from every angle. But sadly, its engine has the same power as a Morphy Richards hairdryer – which is fitting, as most of its drivers seem to be hairdressers. Forgive the cliché if you can, but I can’t.

It’s the same with all Alfas – they are automotive sirens that beguile you with their beauty only to let you down. When it comes to looks, the £120,000 Alfa 8C Competitzione Spider is a case in ravishing point. Frankly, it could be made from recycled San Pellegrino bottles and have an engine designed by Nicky Clarke, and I still wouldn’t care. It is quite simply the best-looking car made this year – this decade, in fact.

At this year’s British International Motor Show, Alfa paid for the usual gaggle of glamour models to sit inside the three 8Cs that were on display. You probably won’t be surprised to learn that these ladies were not exactly the introverted type. Normally, they would stop the traffic, but no one gave them a second glance here; instead, all eyes were feasting on the car. Domenico Martino, the project’s chief engineer, admitted: ‘For me, the front wings are like a woman’s legs under a blanket.’ No wonder even the journalists from Max Power couldn’t take their eyes off it.

For once, though, this Alfa’s beauty is more than skin deep. Under the 8C’s bonnet lies a 450bhp 4.7-litre V8 engine. Once you fire it up, there’s a familiar throaty growl: that would be the Ferrari connection, then. The power plant has been modified from Modena’s finest, via a stint at Maserati. This is one of the few cases where nobody minds receiving a hand-me-down.

Thanks to its name, the 8C has been handed quite a historical legacy too. The 8C 2900 of the early 1930s won the Mille Miglia two years running. And who was Alfa’s competition manager at the time? A chap called Enzo Ferrari.Enzo would certainly be impressed with today’s 8C performance figures – 0-60mph in 4.2 seconds and a top speed of 181mph. Okay, that might not quite be a match for a F430, but it is £50,000 cheaper than Ferrari’s current counterpart. It also employs a similar aerodynamic undertray to the Ferrari, sucking the car down to the road the faster you go. Not that you need any more encouragement to go fast in this – one blip of the throttle and the resultant roar is all you need.

In automatic mode, the Alfa suffers from sleepy gear changes, but select manual, push the ‘sport’ button and things start to look up. Or rather, look sideways. Drifting in the Alfa is an easy pursuit and a near 50:50 weight balance means it isn’t too hairy either – until the car runs out of grip, or more likely, you run out of talent.

The steering is certainly more manly than you’d expect from such a delicately-styled car. And unlike the wimpy Spider, the 8C has the torque to live up to the talk. 470Nm of it, to be exact. It’s not as polished as a Ferrari, it’s not as quick as a Bugatti, and it won’t be as reliable as a Lamborghini. Remember: it is an Alfa, after all – they’re not meant to be perfect. But for the first time in my life, I have fallen in love with one.

- Mark Hedley