Don’t forget this car had stiff competition (at the time) against the 5 series BMW and the 300E MBZ. In America we prefer to spend $$ on German cars, even more so at that time. But now days there are really not too many of those cars on the road either, yet where I live I see 164's all the time. That alone says something IMHO
As far as plain goes, I finally got rid of the wife’s 1994 Nissan Altima a couple of years ago. That was a great car (minus the turning radius) I always wanted a white one where I could paint a blue stripe on it and paint the word car on the side. That car today is right up there with all the current competition hands down. If the 164’s were keeping up with current times and being produced it would look completely different. You need to look at the cars of that era and realize they all looked like that, in fact the 164's had much nicer lines than most.
And I agree with the other posts, I drove the hell out of my 164L before I killed the engine. I would own one again without blinking an eye. They perform, handle and are a very comfortable car to use on a daily basis. Not many of the other Alfas can be used in the same manner, I have owned my share and again this is just my opinion. But because of my 164 I began my project car, and when completed that one will run circles around all others that even resemble it.
T