ALFA GOES M3 HUNTING
Promising a new era for Alfa Romeo, this range-topping sedan has finally been confirmed for our market
THE Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio is an all-new sports sedan from the people who brought us the original Giulia, Alfasud and 75 – handling greats, all. This makes it a bit of a watershed car for the Italian firm, one to give us reason to feel excited by the Alfa brand again and to begin a long reputational rebuilding process. This company can rightly claim to have previously made some of the best-handling sportscars and sedans in the world, and has ambitions to do so again.
The Quadrifoglio is the headline version of the all-important Giulia sedan and standard bearer for Alfa’s new philosophy for taking on the likes of Audi, BMW and Mercedes-benz. The car is its first new big-volume rear-wheel-drive model in more than 20 years and it has a powerful and innovative engine and a class-leading powerto-weight ratio – all of which, Alfa hopes, will add up to a convincing selling point.
Made predominantly of high-strength steel, the Giulia’s modular platform will also be used on larger upcoming models. Aluminium wings and doors and a carbon-fibre bonnet and roof keep the Quadrifoglio’s kerb weight down. The suspension comprises a double wishbone front/multilink rear setup with aluminium subframes and chassis arms. ZF Sachs continuously variable dampers feature as standard.
Drive comes from a new 2.9-litre, twin-turbo V6 petrol engine that’s inspired by sister brand Ferrari’s latest crop of turbo V8s. With an aluminium head and block, a 90-degree bank angle, oversquare cylinders, a cross-plane crankshaft, direct fuel injection and cylinder shutdown technology, it produces maximum outputs of 375 kw and 600 N.m, and spins to 7 000 r/min.
Power is channelled to the road via a carbon-fibre propshaft, an eight-speed torqueconverter automatic gearbox and an active torque-vectoring rear-drive module. In its various markets around the globe, the Quadrifoglio will be offered in manual and four-wheel-drive versions. We’ll get the Giulia in two variants: the Launch Edition,