^ The Italians are great -- I love them. They often start off all enthusiastic, go nuts with the engineering ...get obsessed with the smallest details -- things like the appearance of doorhandles and tail lights often seem to be of much more vital importance to them than such mundane things as ergonomics or visibility.

Build quality and reliability has always been the big problem with Italian cars -- unless they are truly loved and cared for they tend to disintegrate relatively quickly -- anybody seen a Fiat Uno in a while -- NO! -- why? -- because they all fell apart years ago!