A Month In The Life Of: Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio

But goodness me, lovable though it is to look at, even more lovable though it is to drive – and I’ll get to that in a minute – this is still a hard car to love. Imagine, if you will, you’d managed to find yourself shacked up with someone who was not just ludicrously attractive but who you knew, deep down, had a heart of gold. But they were always late, never picked up the telephone, were slovenly around the house, picked their nose, were a fussy eater, ate with their mouth open… I could go on but you get the picture. And you knew there was nothing you could do to ever change these habits. Would you put up with it?

Anthropomorphise the Giulia and that is who you get. I could spend the rest of this story simply railing against the centre screen which, despite being operable both by touch and central controller (neither of which has a ‘back’ button or icon), is still one of the most infernal pieces of apparatus I’ve come across in a car for some time. It’s small, difficult to understand, hard to see, harder still to operate, has terrible graphics and hates CarPlay so much it sometimes simply refuses to acknowledge its existence. And in this car at least it would only work via USB-C. And if it has a clock I never found it, this being one of those things you think you never look at until you can’t any more and realise you do it all the time.

But that’s not all: the bum warmers are weedy, digital radio reception the worst I’ve known in years living here, the vents still blow cold air when you’ve dialled up 24 deg C on the controller and don’t get me going on the fuel consumption. Drive it like it’s supposed to be driven and you’ll be doing well to get out of the teens. And if you do drive like that, and brake reasonably but not extremely hard for a tight corner, the frantic flashing of lights on the dash that result can be a mite off-putting.

And manoeuvring at low speeds can be hard because the throttle is insensitive between zero and 1mph; and my wife thought I’d broken it because of all the clonking noises coming from the back when I was parking it. ‘Ah, don’t worry, that’ll just be the diff,’ I explained knowledgeably and was about to launch into a lengthy extemporisation about why tight mechanical lockers are prone to such outbursts on full lock and how it reminded me of this Group C Porsche I’d once driven… but saw her eyes already fully glazed and staring straight ahead. So I didn’t.

It tries so hard to make you hate it. And it’s pretty damned skilled in that regard. It presents like some ghastly frat house initiation ritual, something you have to go through to get to the good stuff you know is out there waiting for you. Or at least you hope so. And it is.

It’s not the purpose of these pieces to dissect the driving dynamics of its subjects as we might in a formal road test appraisal, which is why we’re 1000 words in and I’ve yet even to touch on them, but when the way it gets down a decent road is what makes you start gabbling forgiveness for all the travails it put you through just to get there, they are rather important.

Let’s deal with the engine first, the thing so many have fallen over themselves in their rush to praise. Despite the efforts of Alfa Romeo, Maserati and Ferrari to stake out individual identities for their motors, the one in this car, the Maserati MC20 and Ferraris from the SF90 to the 296 GTB are all closely related. Close enough indeed to share the same 82mm stroke and 90 degree V-angle, not what you’d choose for a V6 were you designing it from scratch for your own purposes. So no surprises that this is a really good engine. But it’s not a great one. It certainly snarls, but even with those Akropovic pipes its voice is slightly muffled, a chainsaw wrapped in cotton wool. A Busso it is not. I’d say it doesn’t pull quite as hard as an M3 from low down either, but once steam’s up the thing fairly flies. So much so it seems almost a surprise that the drama is all over at 6500rpm.

This is one quick car and its quoted performance (0-62mph in 3.9sec) has to be seen in the context of a rear-wheel drive car without so much as a gearbox over the back axle to aid traction. To provide some context, consider that the four-wheel drive BMW M3 has a notably inferior power-to-weight ratio yet gets there in 3.5sec.

But that’s not what I think about when my thoughts turn to this car. It’s the way it turns the smallest opportunity to have fun into a real occasion, an ability in which the V6 plays a merely supporting role.

Because while the looks might entice you to look hard at the Giulia, and the spec sheet tempt you to go and take a test drive, it is the chassis that will charm the best part of 100 large out of your pocket. Truth be told, this is a slightly bittersweet story because the Giorgio platform on which it sits, developed back in the days of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles at the cost of billions with the expressed purpose of putting Alfa back where it belongs, got culled by Stellantis at least in original form, long before its true potential could be realised. And while we might feel inclined to set up some stocks in the centre of Hoofddorp in the Netherlands where the conglomerate is headquartered, and pelt its senior management with rancid tomatoes, I’m not sure it really had a choice. Giorgio’s problem is it was never designed for electrification, which may seem shortsighted now, given that hybrids from mainstream manufacturers had been around since the end of last century and companies like BMW had full EVs and plug-in hybrids (i3 and i8) before the Giulia even went on sale, but at the time development work would have started, the picture would have been nothing like so clear.

But however it got that way, the result is the finest handling sports saloon you can buy. Lighter, nimbler and more rewarding than any comparable BMW or Benz, at times you feel like looking behind you just to make sure it really is a four-door saloon showing such poise and agility. A shout out too, to its Pirelli Corsa tyres which are designed to work best on warm dry roads and race tracks but which nonetheless coped admirably with a month of cold, wet Wales. Traction could be limited at times, though less than you’d think probably thanks to that diff, and I don’t mind that. It’s that snappy breakaway you so often find on other high-performance hybrid road and track rubber when out of their comfort zones that makes me nervous and here there was no sign. It understeers a bit in slow corners (yup, diff again) but it’s easy to neutralise and were the steering just a little slower I’d be struggling to find ways to fault it. The ride is unreasonably good too, almost all the time, though it can be badly caught out by some of the larger imperfections that increasingly punctuate progress of British back roads these days. And some of Britain’s more challenging roads do make you wish there was a damper setting even softer than the ‘soft’ one already provided for by a button behind the gear shifter.

So here’s where I am: torn. Rent asunder.

And the original version of this story then went on to explain my sorrow at the car’s demise and thoughts about replacing it with an EV in the current climate. Indeed a couple of lines went ‘part of me wonders whether Alfa’s best interests – if not those of Stellantis – would not be better served by simply sorting out a new HMI and sending it back out to bat for another 10 years. The looks have not aged a day, the engine is fully competitive (atrocious consumption apart) and, well, you know about the chassis.’

And then came news that the presses in the Cassino plant where it is built would fall silent no longer. This very month the Giulia is going back into production (without a new HMI admittedly) and there it will stay while its replacement is delayed until at least the end of 2027. Which all people who love a good Alfa will join me in celebrating. And make no mistake: this is a good Alfa. A very good Alfa.

But were I in the market for such a car, would I? Or would I pass by all that is truly great about this car and choose instead to schlep around in a BMW that was less attractive, less rewarding, slower, and possessed of a fraction of the character just because it was rather easier to live with? I’m afraid I would and probably often kick myself for taking the easy option. But were you to take a different view, I would be first to understand.

Photography by Malcolm Griffiths