Masterful Giulia has the power

THE Cloverleaf badge has always been a special one for Alfa Romeo. Always reserved for its flagship models, it hasn’t always necessarily graced some of the best cars in the world but, like BMW’s M badge or Mercedes’s AMG badge, it has always been something for enthusiasts to aspire to. That’s certainly the case with this Giulia Quadrifoglio (Italian for Cloverleaf), a car that’s unashamedly taking aim at the likes of BMW’s M3 and the Mercedes C63. If that sounds like a tall order for a car like the Giulia then you’d be right but this Alfa is packing a punch.

The first one of those is with its price. It’s not just taking aim at those high-end rivals with its performance, it’s also taking them on with its price too. Our test car was £61,295 and with options included, weighed in at a crisp twenty pound note north of £70,000. Seventy. Thousand. Pounds.

The second is its looks. With its bluff front and prominent shield and large under-bumper grilles, it’s certainly more domineering in its looks than most of its rivals. Add to that the bonnet vents, the over-sized Cloverleaf badges on the front wings, the carbon lip boot spoiler, rear under-bumper diffuser and the quad exhaust pipes and it’s not a car for shrinking violets.

Perhaps that’s just as well, because there’s the Giulia’s performance to consider. Under the bonnet is a twin-turbo 2.9-litre V6 petrol engine with a 510bhp going through an eight-speed automatic gearbox. With all of that power going through the rear wheels, it’s enough to get the Alfa from 0 to 60mph in just 3.9 seconds and onto a 191mph top speed. Not that most owners are likely to be focussed on this, but it also manages 34.4mpg average fuel economy and 189g/km emissions.

Even those on-paper statistics don’t prepare you for how the Alfa drives. Settling into the deep Sparco carbon-fibre-backed sports seats (a £3250 option), the starter button is mounted on the steering wheel itself and the engine settles into a deep burbling engine note

LOGBOOK LOWDOWN Price: Engine:

from £61,295 Turbo-petrol – 2.9-litre, V6

0 to 60mph in 3.9 191mph top speed seconds,

Power: Average fuel economy: CO2 emissions: Rivals:

34.4mpg

189g/km BMW M3, Mercedes C63,

8/10

Rating: