2020 Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio review: Impassioned performance meets improved tech

Let us be honest. You don’t get any Alfa Romeo — let by itself this large-effectiveness 2020 Giulia Quadrifoglio — for its safety tech, its infotainment smarts, or even its inside furnishings. No, you get it simply because it appears to be like like this, and simply because it seems like this. You get it for its heritage. You get it to not see by yourself coming and going. Perhaps most importantly, you get an Alfa Romeo simply because of how it helps make you come to feel, regardless of whether you happen to be clipping an apex on a racetrack, your favorite canyon road or that just one switchback on your commute. Alfas are not about practicalities, they are about passion. You get just one simply because you won’t be able to bear not to — shortcomings and reliability dilemma marks be damned.

As soon as you settle for this reality, the Italian automaker’s primary task is all about eradicating justifications for passing by their showroom in favor of the safer, additional predictable decisions provided by the likes of Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz. For 2020, Alfa Romeo has expended considerable work sanding down some of the rough edges on its tech and cabin experiences in hopes of converting dithering dreamers and wanna-be iconoclasts into customers. Has the organization performed more than enough with this Giulia Quadrifoglio? Let us dive in and discover out.

Remarkable specs

Less than its lovely, unchanged-for-2020 pores and skin, the Giulia’s powertrain proceeds to be the same as when it initial strike US dealers in late 2016. If you happen to be looking at this, probabilities are you previously know the pertinents of range-topping Quadrifoglio product. Just in case you’ve got forgotten, know that this rear-wheel-generate sedan functions a Ferrari-derived, two.9-liter, twin-turbo V6, delivering not only 505 horsepower and 443 pound-toes of torque, but also a -to-60-mph time of three.eight seconds (a time that neatly coincides with estimates for its main rivals, the Audi RS5 Sportback and Mercedes-AMG C63 S). Best velocity? Happy you questioned: 191 mph.

What all those (admittedly superlative) figures fail to telegraph is how alive and fizzy this Alfa feels. From the moment you plant your back pockets into its deeply sculpted bucket seats, poke the steering wheel starter button and hear the 6-pot motor bark to existence, the Quadrifoglio bristles with energy and likely, somehow running to come to feel on-the-balls-of-its toes at parking-good deal and freeway speeds alike.

A eager steer

It begins with the steering. Even at metropolis-road velocities, it truly is equally insanely rapid (two.two turns lock-to-lock) and adequately communicative from right off heart to the endstops. Allow for me to underline the former. I merely won’t be able to remember the last time I drove everything with 4 doors in which so little steering input translated into so much directional adjust. As a direct end result, the Quad feels immediately and sublimely on the assault when you happen to be hammering on a curvy extend. In trade, the flat-bottomed 3-spoke wheel calls for additional interest, even on flat stretches of freeway and in day to day city driving. You can expect to make additional tiny corrections than you could be utilized to, and you can find heightened susceptibility to tramlining on uneven roadways. 

It is really worth it. 

In an era of exact-but-useless-feeling electrically energy-assisted racks — and even using on my early-spring tester’s 245/35-collection 19-inch Pirelli Sottozero wintertime tires — the Giulia stands out for its alertness and feed-back. Way out. That stated, if you happen to be the type of driver who prizes isolation, refinement and automation in excess of engagement, you likely shouldn’t be searching at the sportier variations of any compact luxurious sedan, and you surely shouldn’t be searching at this Alfa. 

Hold the (ceramic) brakes

That same perception of vigilance and immediacy is apparent in the brakes, way too. On display beneath my tester’s lovely five-spoke dark-end alloys ($five hundred), you can discover a set of generously sized carbon-ceramic stoppers (15.4-inch discs fore, fourteen.two-inch aft). With 6-piston calipers up entrance and 4 out back, these brakes are, frankly, overkill for the road. I have driven a Quadrifoglio with the common iron discs, and the brakes are nonetheless excellent. 

These Brembo CCM models charge a wallet-wilting $eight,000, and except you happen to be a standard keep track of-day attendee, you happen to be superior off shelling out that revenue in other places. (Heck, even if you happen to be a habitual circuit rat, you would pretty much absolutely superior served putting that dosh in direction of a large-effectiveness driving school and some keep track of-spec rubber and pads.) As it is, these brakes offer an abundance of stopping energy, however their immediateness takes some getting utilized to (the uninitiated will dismiss them as grabby). Did I point out these same brakes utilized to charge $5,000? Porca vacca!

Holy shift

1 matter worth noting: It could be just my memory actively playing tricks on me, but it feels like the calibration of the Alfa’s ZF 8HP50 8-velocity automated has enhanced considering the fact that the last time I drove a Quadrifoglio a couple of years in the past. As ahead of, regardless of what method the DNA Pro generate-method selector is in, you can discover a rapid-shifting transmission with calibration that facilitates properly-timed gearchanges and spirited driving. Even however the 2020 product nonetheless has a incredibly delicate throttle, my tester’s cogswapper feels happier tooling all-around town than the last Quad I drove — that car’s transmission at times clunked at sluggish speeds, as if to passive-aggressively let me know it was unhappy on a limited leash.

1 matter that failed to need to have switching with the gearbox: all those massive, column-mounted, aluminum paddle shifters. Yes, some persons will in the beginning be aggravated that they will not likely discover the normal amount of money of hand clearance concerning the steering-wheel rim and the change-sign stalk, but except you’ve got acquired catchers’ mitts for hands, you can get utilized to it. The payoff is splendidly tactile and responsive paddle shifters that you can want to use once more and once more, if only to hear the motor lunging in direction of its six,five hundred-rpm redline although doddering off to Starbucks.

The suspension is splendidly tuned, as properly. Firm, sure, but much from sponsored-by-the-American-Dental-Association agency. Cornering is flat, and concerning the aforementioned aggressive change-in up entrance and the torque-vectoring limited-slip differential out back, this three,800-pound sedan feels unerringly balanced and nimble, as if its wheelbase is a foot shorter than its 111 inches. 

Gas effectiveness

In spite of no major powertrain variations, according to EPA, the Giulia Quadrifoglio has mysteriously managed to eke out a little superior highway gasoline financial system for 2020. Formal estimates simply call for seventeen miles for every gallon metropolis, twenty five highway (up one vs. 2019) and seventeen mixed. Even though these figures will not likely win you any citations from the Sierra Club, they are in essence the same as rivals.

So that is the 2020 Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio’s driving knowledge: At after spectacularly visceral, speedy and superb, all in a way that even all those incredibly attained Germans don’t rather deal with. Of training course, you previously knew all that, or at minimum, you likely could’ve intuited much of that just by mulling Alfa’s status and searching at these images. 

2020 updates

So… what about all those improvements I mentioned before, all those to the benefit and safety tech, and to cabin furnishings?

In a nutshell, despite an excellent driving position and mainly properly performed key driver touchpoints (seats, steering wheel, pedals and the aforementioned paddle shifters), pre-2020-product-year Giulia cabins ended up underwhelming. They came across as hollow-feeling melanges of subpar plastics, insubstantial switchgear and sub-par infotainment that would’ve been disappointing to discover in a backyard-variety Mazda or Volkswagen (under no circumstances head in a sport sedan aiming to charge upwards of $seventy five,000). 

I am joyful to report that factors are comprehensively superior this year. 

On the infotainment entrance, you can find a new eight.eight-inch display from Magneti Marelli, and it functions a additional intuitive, user-configurable layout alongside with superior graphics and new functions. You can find also Apple CarPlay and Android Auto integration, furthermore a WiFi hotspot and obtainable wireless charging. The program is touchscreen-primarily based, but you can find also a revised command knob with enhanced construction and handwriting recognition, alongside with voice-command abilities. Additional functions involve effectiveness pages and a new Alfa Link smartphone application with auto heath monitor, distant commence, and so on). The new components even will allow for in excess of-the-air (OTA) firmware updates.

Ultimately, although a tremendous enhancement in excess of 2019 models, this new architecture continues to be inferior to FCA’s personal Uconnect, let by itself recent variations of Audi’s MMI or Benz’s MBUX. Which is legitimate in everything from boot-up time to aspect richness, intuitiveness or typical slickness of physical appearance.

The same can be stated for the up-to-date products and switchgear. You can find a restyled leather-wrapped equipment selector, new rotary knobs with superior-feeling actions, furthermore a thoughtfully redesigned heart console with enhanced storage and superior cupholders. Once more, although these variations signify not-insubstantial victories for ergonomics and come to feel, they nonetheless don’t measure up to the components utilized on competing offerings.

Pricing and ADAS

For 2020, the total Giulia range, from the base product ($39,four hundred furthermore $one,295 place) on up to this loaded-up Quadrifoglio ($74,445 base $ninety,840 as analyzed together with its oddly pricier $one,595 place charge), benefits from common forward-collision warning with automated emergency braking. In addition, my car or truck will come geared up with a new Lively Driver Assist Package deal, a $two,000 Amount II tech bundle that functions adaptive cruise command with lane centering, furthermore targeted traffic sign recognition, lane-continue to keep aid and active blind-place aid.

Evidently, effectiveness and passion isn’t going to arrive cheaply, but the Quadrifoglio’s pricing is essentially right on the revenue for the phase, and this car’s breathtaking appears to be like and relative rarity signifies you happen to be additional probable to get nods of acceptance at your regional Cars and trucks & Coffee attract than all those who roll up in RS, AMG and M rivals.

However just one for the iconoclasts

In the conclude, the 2020 Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio proceeds to provide singularly superlative, participating effectiveness although benefiting from a bevy of substantial improvements to its weakest factors. Even though I suspect these updates ultimately will not likely be more than enough to lure a full new crop of customers into Alfa showrooms, all those who ended up on the fence earlier will probable have a much less complicated time justifying going out for Italian.