Great cars.
I remember my first drive of one, in Italy in 99, it was a silver 2.0TS and I was driving a 2.0TS P2 GTV at the time.
The GTV felt faster but the 156's turn in on those mountain snake roads was to die for, it just glided round.
So, in 2006, I bought a 8TS SportWagon for the wife. It was a great car. Unfortunately the cambelt went at 75k miles due to believing the word of the guy I bought it from, an Alfa main dealer mechanic, that it had been done. Mike Roberts traced the part numbers back and it was produced the same year of production, so never trust an Alfa mech!
Brilliant car and still miss it, it was a bronze metallic black. Looked black in normal light but at sunset the thing would glow orange, it was beautiful.