David Linklater.

Italian brand is reborn... again. We hit the road in the Giulia Veloce and Quadrifoglio. By

It’s tempting to say that the Giulia is Alfa’s second coming: the car that finally takes it out of the doldrums and sideways down an exciting road ahead.

After all, it’s the first rear-drive Alfa sedan for 30 years. It’s also on a platform that will provide the base for a bunch of future models, including next year’s Stelvio SUV.

But it might be more accurate to say the Giulia is Alfa’s umpteenth coming. How many times have we been here before? When it launched the GTV coupe and Spider in 1993 for example, they were proclaimed as the maker’s return to sporting form. But they didn’t quite fire.

Same goes for the 156 sedan in 1997 and then the 147 in 2000. And then the 159 in 2005 and the Brera in 2006. Then Alfa Romeo went down a very mainstream track with the Mito (2008) and Giulietta (2010) hatchbacks. Then things went very, very quiet.

Anyway, point is: it’d be a very brave person to claim that Alfa Romeo is back (insert exclamation mark if you like) with the Giulia.

But it’d also be a very honest person to say the Giulia is a fantastic new car, in a segment that’s arguably getting a bit sameagain.

We’ve just spent a day driving both new Giulia models: the $79,990 Veloce and $134,990 Quadrifoglio.

Most only have eyes for the Quadrifoglio, and that’s as it should be. Priority was given to the flagship model during development, Alfa rightly reasoning that the best way to be cool again was to beat the German establishment at its own game.

The Quadrifoglio is Alfa’s answer to the BMW M3 and Mercedes-amg C 63 S. It boasts a 375kw/600nm 2.9-litre twin-turbo V6 engine and eight-speed automatic transmission that