Fire up a current Aston Martin and the words power, beauty, soul illuminate to greet you in a carefully curated fashion. The same stardust is applied to something called the ECU - Emotional Control Unit - in Gaydon speak. Everyone else just calls it the key. Somehow for the apex of British automotive cool this marketing chutzpah feels cynical, a little try hard.

Yet if an Alfa Romeo was so self indulgent we’d be tripping over ourselves to praise the process. It would probably be scribed in Italian or Latin. It might even be spelt wrong but it wouldn’t matter because no car manufacturer in existence has greater reach than Alfa Romeo. You’d buy a supercar or supermini off them and never question your decision. You’d pull up at the swankiest hotel in the Italian lakes in either and still act the playboy. Mercedes-Benz? Too clinical. Ford? Lacking cachet, no matter how many Le Mans wins the GT lineage hoovers up.

I’ve never driven one, but today I’m breaking my Anatra - and what a way to break it - with a GTV V6 Cup no less. I’m ready and willing to be seduced, yet I’m also not here to regurgitate the same tired, romantic notions about the Milanese firm. I cherish cars that have soul, but not at the expense of dynamics; give me a Honda NSX over a Ferrari 348 any day of the week. Such sentimentality pulls a cloud of smoke and mirrors over the truth that Giulia Quadrifoglio aside, Alfa Romeo’s of recent memory have - to use a technical term - been a bit shit.

That’s the common belief at least, fuelled by a Top Gear anarchism that’s almost worn by devotees as a badge of honour. Immediately the GTV begins its charm offensive as the evocatively wrought serpent badge whispers sweet nothings in my ear - there’s enough front here to make the prancing horses of Maranello and Stuttgart wilt. It’s hard to believe this car is over a quarter of a century old - born in 1995 as a dizygotic twin to the Fiat Coupe, the GTV shares that car's Tipo platform underpinnings. You can stop sniggering at the back, because that means fully independent rear suspension.

From there both cars rapidly went their separate ways - where the pen of Chris Bangle behind the Fiat Coupe was gripped firmly and was aggressive and decisive in it’s movement, the pencil of Enrico Fumia at Pininfarina was held lightly and glided across the paper. You instinctively acknowledge the GTV as a good looking car, but it's the subtle flourishes you only notice with prolonged exposure that makes you fall in love.

Note the chiselled panel work with the soft detailing, the quad headlamps and offset number plate. The iconic tele-dial alloys, the single strip rear light cluster, the deeply cowled instruments and perfectly stitched bucket seats. Then you pop the oversized clamshell-like bonnet and become exposed to one of the most beautiful engine bays at any price. The polished chrome intake plenums and exquisitely crackled cam covers are the perfect antidote to the sea of black plastic lurking beneath the bonnets of modern sports cars.

The GTV debuted with the willing four cylinder Twin Spark engine, which was undoubtedly a sweet motor, but hopeless in a fight against the rampant, turbocharged Fiat. What everyone wanted was a version blessed with the company's iconic Busso V6. After a brief dalliance with a turbocharged 2.0L V6, which sadly sounds more exciting than the reality; it was created to satisfy a punitive Italian tax law, although it did also give birth to the fearsome 2.0L twin turbo Maserati Ghibli. Fans of the marque finally got their wish in 1998 in 3.0L, 217bhp guise. It was enough for a 0-60mph time of circa 6.7 seconds, and a 150mph top speed.