Bastion of the luxury sedan
You can do two things when life gets you down. Choice one, as my mother told it so many years ago, is to fold up your tent and skulk away, tail between your legs, in the dead of night. The other choice — and even at six years old, I could figure out by dear old mother’s tone of voice that this was the option I was expected to choose — you can hunker down and figure a way out of the morass.
It’s no secret the sedan segment is hurting. SUVs are ascendant, ordinary consumers are buying F-250 dualies because they have to move a dresser once a year, and sportcutes are a phase that threatens to overwhelm the entire automotive marketplace. What’s a traditional automaker, especially one steeped in a long history of sport coupes and sedans, to do?
Improve. That’s why Alfa Romeo, all but a pimple on the luxury segment’s posterior in North America, is already upgrading its Giulia sedan. And while admittedly unlikely to scare a Mercedes C-Class salesman into retirement, with the 2020’s upgrade — mostly creature comforts, because it didn’t really need any performance improvements — there’s now even less excuse (if you’re shopping the ultimate in performance sedans) not to consider the four-leafed clover. Here are five things I learned after driving the new(ish), top-of-theline Giulia.
SOME FIRM SUSPENSION
I thought my significant other, fellow Driving writer Nadine Filion, just had a thing for trucks and SUVs. Hardcore SUVs. Put her in a Wrangler that trembled like a San Franciscan earthquake over the smallest crease in the road, and she beamed like I had finally managed to remember her birthday — after 10 years of long faces every September 18, you’d think I’d remember. Get her behind the wheel of a new Pilot and she won’t get 200 metres before lamenting Honda had wimped out. Her ultimate vehicle, as far as I can tell, would be a Ford F-150 Raptor with even stiffer springs.
Until she drove the Guilia
Quadrifoglio. Every time she got behind the wheel, it was like I had remembered her birthday and our anniversary — I’m really going to have to put a calendar “meeting” into iCal after this, aren’t I? She never, ever asks me to keep luxury cars beyond our allotted week; with the Giulia, she was talking about reporting it stolen and keeping it for ourselves.
What she loved about the Quadrifoglio was the same thing she loves about butch SUVs; it’s no-nonsense directness. First up was the firm and, well, direct steering. The Alfa’s quick, 2.2-turns-to-lock steering box spoke to her directly, the Alfa almost pretending there was no hydraulics and electrons between Pirellis and steering wheel to muddy the feeling of — and now you’re getting really tired of this descriptor — directness. We’re talking the kind of “talk to me” feedback that BMW abandoned some time ago, that Mercedes pretends to have, and Audi still hasn’t figured out. If you want to clip apexes with more precision than this Giulia, you’re going to have to lose two doors. Maybe the fenders, too.
The same rings true of the suspension. Ratchet the DNA — Alfa’s stupid name for its onboard mode selector — to Dynamic or even Race and the suspension becomes Nurburgring-firm. The chassis remains planted, the big PZero Corsa tires — 285 / 30ZR19 out back and 245 / 35ZR19 up front — stay as flat as Japan’s economy. Grip is prodigious, and again, the whole thing feels like it’s wired directly into the driver’s synapses.
It’s perhaps a bit too direct Herself, perhaps a little too conditioned to sport-brutes and butch trucks, could not assimilate the Quadrifoglio’s brakes. FCA Canada — actually, we were driving an American press unit, so we’ll blame the Yanks — outfitted this tester with Alfa’s optional carbon ceramic brakes. They were powerful. Perhaps too powerful, at least for someone used to the woodenness of a Wrangler’s pathetic excuse for a brake caliper.
Whatever the reason, she just couldn’t get used to what I was trying to mansplain was the “precision” — and yes, I might have to remember her birthday, our anniversary and the entire garbage/recycling schedule next year — of high-performance brakes. Thankfully, the Quadrifolgio’s standard steel brakes provide exemplary braking performance as well.
So, here’s the bottom line. If you live in Germany (the autobahn) or Italy (Alpine passes) or, better yet, plan to take the Giulia Quadrifoglio to the track days it so richly deserves, then by all means, go ceramic. Otherwise, save yourself $8,250 and get better everyday performance with the standard brakes.
I’LL TAKE OVER FOR THE ENGINE EVALUATION
She-who-never-lets-me-forgetshe-has-no-speeding-tickets may clip apexes better than I thought and appreciate a firm stability, but nonetheless has a phobia about using more than 200 horsepower, no matter how much grunt an engine might have.
Of course, I have no such compunction. This means that the Quadrifolgio’s 505 horsepower, not to mention its 443 lb.-ft. of torque, got some exercise. Said engine comes by all that raw power honestly — 505 horses from just 2.9 litres, or 174 horsepower per litre — as it’s basically the V8 out of the Ferrari 488 Pista (710 horsepower from 3.9 litres) with the front two pistons lopped off.
Yes, the Alfa has a Ferrari engine, and it sounds and performs like one. Ferocious at full throttle in both bark and bite, it’s not quite as happy just poodling around town. Oh, it will trundle along, but one gets the impression its nose is just a little out of joint. Floor the throttle at 2,000 rpm in Comfort mode and there’s some hesitancy to bare fangs; do so at four grand in Race mode and the tach will hit 7,000 faster than a Rottweiler ready to pounce at an unexpected doorbell. It’s a beastly thing when it wants to be, its sub four second zeroto-100 km/h sprint the equal of many a Porsche 911. Besides, any time you can brag that your engine is made in Maranello is a good day.
A LITTLE MORE CIVILIZED THAN IT USED TO BE
True, died-in-wool enthusiasts buy Alfa for what their engines can do, not how their infotainment systems compute. Unfortunately, there’s not enough true enthusiasts around any more to build a business case for luxury sedans, even of the performance variety. Previous Guilias weren’t exactly renowned for their topflight appointments or infotainment systems. This year’s changes see the seats and steering wheel wearing better leather and some touch points — the paddle shifters stand out — have been upgraded. There’s also a new centre console that boasts better cupholders. Some of the switchgear has been replaced as well.
Most improved, though, is the infotainment, which is a fine example of the breed. It uses tiles to manage each function and by simply sweeping to one side or the other the touchscreen’s functionality is changed easily. Said screen is, at 8.8 inches, decently sized and Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are standard equipment. Overall, the Magnetti Marelli system is top tier.
The only problem is FCA’s own UConnect system — which Maserati, for instance, renames and uses — is probably the best system in existence right now and has just released its fifth-generation upgrade. Why Alfa Romeo didn’t go inhouse for this one is a mystery, one I expect will be rectified for the next model revision.
SHOULD YOU BUY ONE?
I think so. Of course, there’s always the question of reliability, but that hasn’t stopped anyone from buying Land Rovers, BMWs, or some other FCA products, for that matter. The price is almost competitive, the base MSRP of $90,945 understandable considering where the engine comes from and the fact that it has a carbon fibre driveshaft. And, if you skip the ceramic Brembos, the $98,140 as-tested price isn’t actually objectionable.
All those things considered then, it comes down to this: do you, like my closeted Tazio Nuvolari, demand a real driver’s car, or are you just posing as a sports car enthusiast? Will you be really clipping apexes, or are you just a Gran Prix de Rodeo Boulevard competitor? If your answer to the first part of both questions was an affirmative, then you should seriously shop the Alfa. If the second part of the equation sounds more like you, do yourself a favour and buy a Mercedes.