New Giulia set to be the alpha Alfa Romeo
REVEALED at a special preview at the newly renovated Alfa Romeo museum, this is the car Alfisti have been waiting for.
It’s also the first of a new breed of Alfas that Fiat boss Sergio Marchionne is betting the house on, new models that will (he hopes) launch the brand back into the United States (where it has not been sold since 1995) and more than quadruple Alfa Romeo sales worldwide by 2018.
It’ll be released in South Africa during the third quarter of 2016.
The new Giulia is a four-door, 3 Series/Class contender with either rear-wheel or allwheel drive, and a range of high-revving tur- bopetrol engines (and diesels too), topped by an all-new 375kW turbopetrol V6 developed with help from Ferrari, that’ll launch the new Alfa from 0-100 in a claimed 3.9 seconds.
Front suspension is by means of the classic double wishbone system.
The rear suspension has a multilink independent set-up with a special ‘double-clutch’ differential that allows the car’s traction-control ECU to modulate the drive to each rear wheel individually.
This keeps wheelspin under control without an intrusive stability-control system chopping back the engine’s power.
Extensive use of aluminium and carbon- fibre keeps the car’s kerb weight under 1 500kg, and the brakes discs are carbon ceramic.
It gives the new Giulia a power-to-weight ratio of better than 250kW/ton, making Alfa’s impressive acceleration claims all the more believable.
There are a lot of niche marques in this class, however, not least Volvo and Jaguar; to stand out, the Giulia will have to be a true Alfa – above all, a real driver’s machine.
And that we’ll have to wait and see when we drive it.