A vastly underrated car, IMO. That one is still with me. It's my 4th. Their lack of popularity kept the prices down. Believe it or not, I gave £600 for that, in 2009! Values are starting to climb, now, but still low, compared to other similar '80s cars. The problem was Saab's insistence that it should be front wheel drive. That riled the die-hard "Alfisti", meaning that it was shunned by Alfa enthusiasts for not being a "true" Alfa. It was basically, a Fiat Croma in an Armani suit, and with an absolute jewel of an engine. The last Alfa-designed car before the Fiat takeover. (Also sold as the Saab 9000 and Lancia Thema - one version of which, had that absolutely gorgeous Ferrari-designed V8 in it). That said, the Busso V6 in the Alfa, is one of the all-time great engines. 200 horse, straight out of the box, in the days when Ford were selling a 3 litre V6 Granada with 140 of them... Long-lived too. I got a quarter of a million miles out of my last one before I broke it, and I still have the engine as a spare!
Over here, too much damage had been done by the rust scandal from the 1970s. They tried SO hard with the 164 (and they were at least as good from the rust point of view, as any Merc or BMW of the day, IMO), but it was too late. Lancia pulled out of the UK market altogether, and Alfa never really recovered. I think they must have lost money on most of the ones they sold. The build quality was excellent, but they couldn't charge "Mercedes money", even though, they were incurring "Mercedes" build costs.
And yes, the Q4 was an absolute weapon! Sadly, left hand drive only, but tidy examples of the Q4 are now changing hands for around £15k. Heaven help you if you trash a gearbox though! In fact, quite a few 164 parts are getting very hard to come by, now.
