Alfa Romeo Veloce Carbon
On the surface, Alfa Romeo’s Giulia Veloce Carbon doesn’t fit our luxury criteria, by virtue of its sub-$100k affordability, but there’s no reason to not have a little Italian romance in your fleet.
The Alfa Romeo name engenders thoughts of sleek athleticism and when the car itself is red, well, that just throws a whole new light on things.
Alfa Romeo’s generally don’t fall under our purview as fleet cars – though at one time, the 156 and the 147 did, at the upper-level management side of things where both were credible challengers.
It has been a quiet, few years for Alfa Romeo with one thing and another, but this has given the New Zealand distributors time to re-establish the brand to where it is best accepted by the New Zealand consumer – a natural successor to the executive level 156, which was discontinued in 2011.
The Alfa Romeo Giulia range for 2021 is the ‘blurry line’ between automotive practicality and romanticism.
With the original Giulia making its arrival here in 2017, the Giulia Veloce Carbon 2021 model looks different to its forebear, which has been around – globally – since 2015 and won numerous accolades in the intervening years with likely a few model changes/ updates as well.
The Veloce Carbon is a front engine, rear wheel drive four-door saloon, powered by a two-litre turbo petrol, delivering 206kw of power and 400Nm of peak torque with a 0 to 100km/h time of 5.7 seconds, but standing starts are not really the Alfa’s forte.
Rather, it is sustainable enthusiastic speeds on twisty roads which is where the Veloce Carbon really shines – Scenic Drive, the Maraetai coast roads, the Hunua hills or the Awhitu peninsula are excellent roads to develop your love affair with the Veloce Carbon.
And as the heated (front and rear) sports seats hug you in all the right places, allowing your feet to dance on the aluminium sports pedals, you’ll find as I did, there is a lot to love, given Alfa Romeo’s deserved reputation for vehicle dynamics blended exquisitely with design artistry.
The rear wheel drive with its limited slip differential adds an interesting dimension to the overall handling of the car, which is not so firm as one would expect of a true ‘driver’s car’, but is more sympathetic to the comfort and well-being of passengers.
And that segues neatly into the significant and comprehensive suite of Advanced Driver Assistance features found onboard the Giulia for 2021.
These include Lane Keep Assist, Active Blind Spot Assist, Driver Behaviour Warning, Autonomous Emergency Braking and Active Cruise Control, all critical to the Giulia’s fivestar ANCAP rating.
Nor should we ignore the fore and aft parking sensors, or the satellite navigation / reversing camera pair-up displayed on the new 8.8-inch touchscreen which affords access to the performance management features of the car.
On that note, the Giulia offers an innovative Alfa DNA Drive Mode – a three-mode rotary selector which modifies the dynamic behaviour of the vehicle according to the driver’s selection: with aggressive engine and shifting calibrations. daily driving. achieve the lowest fuel consumption.
Fuel consumption is a crude place to end an article on an Alfa Romeo, particularly one as elegant as the Giulia. What about the name then? Veloce Carbon?
Carbon is largely what you will find adorning the body of the Giulia Veloce which sports carbon fibre Alfa Romeo V shield, side skirts, rear spoiler and mirror caps.
The carbon fibre extends into the cabin with accents on the dashboard, steering wheel, door panels and centre console.
Veloce is Italian for ‘rapid’ or ‘brisk’ or ‘fast’ and the Giulia is certainly all that, but it is equally at home in 50km/h areas, which could have been designed to highlight the elegance of Alfa Romeo’s future classic.