Italian cars are usually always fun to drive, but a bit dubious to own.
In my youth I owned several Lancias, which were absolutely brilliant fun. I remember my 1300 beta coupe showing a clean pair of heals to an XR3 down the twisty lanes, and the huge grin on my face given I'd only paid a couple of hundred quid for it, and the XR3 was brand new.
Of course the flip side to this is maintenance which, for an Italian car of that age, is constant. But cars were simple, carburettors could be swapped in an afternoon, and when the holes in the bodywork finally got too much (Or you'd interfaced with a ditch), you got rid of it, or bought another for a couple of hundred quid.
Fast forward many years and I now drive a sensible, and reliable German car. I often wondered what time had done to Italian cars... So it was with some excitement I discovered the small car assigned to me as a holiday rental was a FIAT.
Oh what fun, bowling through the twisty lanes, skinny tires squirming for grip, little engine singing along, invariably in the top 3rd of the rev range. It brought back so many fond memories.
Even more so when I discovered the windscreen washer didn't work, the cigarette lighter didn't work to charge the sat nav, and the central locking packed up on one side halfway through the first week... Being Italian, I knew finding the fuse box was never going to fix the problems, and of course it didn't.
I didn't care, it was great fun to drive, and I only had to live with the faults for a few days.
Which I think sums it up for me... They're great fun to drive, but with more on more electronic complexity installed, you want to be able to give it back after a couple of weeks, I really don't like the idea of constant maintenance of that volume of Italian electronics!