2017 Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio

First zox Review
The gestation of the Alfa Romeo Giulia has been as complicated as the plot line of an Italian telenovela, with its development (or seeming lack thereof) occurring in parallel with Alfa’s ambition to return to the United States. It has been a decade since then Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne first promised to bring the Italian brand back here, with Fiat’s merger with Chrysler in 2009 offering an obvious shortcut to making it happen. The original plan was for the Giulia to use the same corporate Compact Wide platform as the Dodge Dart and the Chrysler 200; fortunately, this was nixed, and Alfa instead developed a new rear-wheel-drive platform mostly by itself. The production Giulia made its debut in mid-2015, and the car finally will reach the U.S. late this year as a 2017 model.


It’s Here—It’s Really Here
But before that happens, the journalists must have their turn, and we’ve just driven several Giulias at a launch event held both on and near FCA’s vast test track at Balocco in Italy. While most of the powertrains we drove had no relevance to the U.S.—a 2.1-liter turbo-diesel, for example—the Quadrifoglio and its 2.9-liter twin-turbocharged V-6 and BMW M3–beating 505 horsepower are of definite import to Americans. (Non-Quadrifoglio U.S.-spec Giulias will be powered by a 276-hp turbocharged four-cylinder engine, but none were on hand at the event.)

The official line is that the Quadrifoglio engine is “inspired by Ferrari technology and technical skills.” Essentially, it’s a six-cylinder sister to the Ferrari F154 twin-turbo V-8s that power the Scuderia’s 488GTB and California T and a cousin to the engine that powers the Maserati Quattroporte GTS. In the Alfa, peak power occurs at 6500 rpm, while the limiter is set to 7250 rpm. The V-6 drives the Quadrifoglio’s rear wheels through either a six-speed manual or an eight-speed automatic gearbox and a torque-vectoring rear differential. Only the manual will be available at launch in the U.S.; the eight-speed will come later.

Caveats: Alfa would only let us try the Quadrifoglio on Balocco’s handling course, with the straights broken up by temporary chicanes to make sure we couldn’t try to validate the claimed 190-mph top speed. Our time in the car also was limited because more than 50 journalists were waiting to drive one of just four Quadrifoglios on hand, meaning the lines were like those you might find waiting for the best ride at an amusement park. Fortunately, our elbows are the sharpest in the business, so we got to experience both manual and automatic versions of the Quadrifoglio.


Visual Menace, Dynamic Goodness
The Quadrifoglio certainly is not lacking in visual aggression. The basic Giulia can come across as a little timid, but the top-spec model gets a muscular reworking that includes an active front splitter plus an equally serious-looking diffuser at the back. Weight is reduced by carbon-fiber materials for the hood, roof, and driveshaft, with all Giulias also getting aluminum front fenders and doors. Alfa’s claimed 3359-pound weight includes no fluids—our best estimate is that the car will be roughly 3600 pounds—but the Giulia should stack up well against its obvious rivals, the BMW M3, the Mercedes-AMG C63, and the Cadillac ATS-V.

The six-speed manual gearbox, standard on (and available only for) the Quadrifoglio, delivers the purer driving experience, but it’s clear that less development effort has been expended on shoring up its working relationship with the V-6 engine. The gearchanges have a nice weight to them, and the manual is fun to row quickly, but gentler progress reveals that the heavily boosted engine suffers from noticeable turbo lag. Below 3000 rpm, there’s a distinct pause followed by a swelling sensation as the horses take a couple of seconds to gallop in. The eight-speed automatic’s ability to either drop a gear or to slip its torque converter helps spool up the turbos more quickly, and those horses pretty much drop through the ceiling. Although the auto’s gearchanges aren’t as quick as those of many dual-clutch automatics, they’re faster and less dramatic than the speediest made with the manual gearbox.

The car is impressively quick once the V-6 is on boil, and the engine pulls hard all the way to the limiter. Acceleration barely diminishes as speed builds. The cars at Balocco were fitted with optional carbon-ceramic brakes that proved to be adept at inverting longitudinal g-forces. The brake pedal lacks initial feel, but braking was as fade-free as it needed to be, given how many chicanes Alfa dotted around the track.


Stability Control: It’s All or Nothing
Lateral g-forces are another matter. The Quadrifoglio’s chassis finds impressive grip, and the fast-ratio steering works well on the track, but the stability-control system prefers to rule things with an iron fist. There are three chassis modes that, as in all Alfas, are named in honor of deoxyribonucleic acid—Dynamic, Natural, and Advanced Efficiency—as well as an additional Race mode available beyond these. As you’d expect, Dynamic mode quickens throttle response and firms up the adjustable dampers, but it doesn’t slacken a traction-management system that can’t be controlled separately, and it still refuses to allow any rear-end slip. The stability sentinels work to reduce understeer and to maximize traction, but the result is a rear-wheel-drive car with more power than two stock 4Cs that refuses to take instruction from the throttle.

The answer is to switch to Race mode, which disables the stability-control system altogether. Doing so proves that the Quadrifoglio is ready, willing, and able to steer at the rear. It feels much more friendly at the limit than a BMW M3, starting to slide at lower speeds but doing so much more progressively, and the quick-ratio steering works well to keep it pointed (mostly) in the intended direction. Call us scaredy cats if you like, but we, and we suspect most owners, would appreciate a more permissive stability setting somewhere between “nanny knows best” and “you’re on your own.” The Quadrifoglio sounds great—snarling, angry, and very Alfa—proving that nobody makes a V-6 with more aural appeal than the Italians.

The Early Returns
The car is impressive. Well, mostly. We did find a surprising number of electrical idiosyncrasies in the cars we drove in Italy, from freezing display screens to a check-engine light. We also found the interior trim did little to dismiss stereotypes about Italian build quality, with some cheap-feeling switchgear and a center console that deflected under gentle pressure. We’ll wait to reserve our final judgments until we have more time behind the wheel, but the Giulia Quadrifoglio seems well prepared to battle the competition from BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Cadillac. It outguns all but Mercedes’ C63 S by a fair margin and—based on our limited first exposure—delivers more emotional appeal, too. This is one comparison test that we’re really, really looking forward to.