Here are live test pics of our Alfa Giulietta test drive, in which our colleagues at Autoblog.it got to drive the new Alfa Romeo hatch over 100 km, between track driving and street driving. While the Alfa MiTo was a much-awaited car and has been an important model for Alfa and its launch into the compact segment, the Giulietta is essential to Alfa for a brand revival, and in terms of building a new, quality vehicle in a competitive segment.
The Giulietta looks better in person than in pictures, and overall the muscular design and the combination of colours and accessories is very pleasing. The front is still quite prominent and if you’re in the market for the Giulietta, you might want to splash out on some bigger wheels as the 16-inch design can get a bit lost (the 18-inch wheels on the Giulietta Quadrifoglio Verde are much more attractive), but other than that we’re looking at quite a sexy little hatch.
The thing that gives us most relief about the Giulietta is that it isn’t just constructed around Alfa good looks. The first good impressions of the interior, with a BMW 1 Series style dash, a lovely mix of leather, alcantara and metal finishes, are only confirmed the more you come into contact with this new Alfa Romeo. Let’s face it though, to compete in this segment Alfa’s new C EVO platform had to be good, comfort and safety had to be very good and price had to be appealing. It’s not an easy feat but the Alfa Giulietta seems to pull it off quite well.
Alfa Romeo Giulietta test drive
The Giulietta in this test was a 1.4-litre Multiair with 170 hp, with Distinctive package and Sport kit. You’ve only got to go a short distance before you fall in love with the steering: clean, precise and well-balanced, it makes you forget you’re driving something with electronic steering assistance, and you can just enjoy the Dual Pinion technology. The Multiair engine has 250 Nm of torque, and you can feel it. At just 2,000 rpm the acceleration is generous and you don’t have to make this car work hard to enjoy it.
If you want to play around with the DNA function, you get even more satisfaction, and this is where the Giulietta really shows what it’s made of. A different personality comes out of the car and you feel a heavier and more involved steering, overboost function, ready acceleration, active Q2 differential, a more relaxed VDC electronic stability and even a brake management system that makes for faster and more responsive braking. You can read all of that in a press release, but in the Giulietta you can actually feel it at the wheel.
Some annoying aspects are present, though, this is not a perfect car. The multimedia system controls are in a slightly uncomfortable position and sometimes the sports seats and overall noisy aerodynamics on highway drives do not make for a smooth ride. But apart from that this is a driver’s car, with an agile engine that you will appreciate in the city for its elasticity and quiet ride at low revs, and some fun steering when you want to tackle the bends a bit more. With a start&stop system, you get some decent mileage out of your fuel, with Alfa declaring an average fuel consumption of 4.6 l/100 km. We figure we probably did about 10 km/l but we did throw the car around a bit and use the sports function most of the time.
We also got to try briefly the Alfa Giulietta Quadrifoglio Verde model. At first glance, it’s a lovely looking sporty hatch, but we would have liked more exclusive features, especially on the inside as most of the elements of the sports kit seen on the previous model are apparent here, too. This 1750 Tbi engine had 235 hp and while the engine rumble was more noticeable, it’s still quite discrete for what is Alfa’s performance variant. The dedicated suspension of this model and the more powerful braking system are evident at the first turn on the track, and the Giulietta Quadrifoglio has a very exact driving style. Some understeer can occur on exaggerating with the accelerator, but the electronic assistance will never really dampen the enthusiasm of a good driver.
Quick changes of direction and hard braking are easily achieved, but the Cloverleaf is also a sweet car to drive at top speeds. The Giulietta Quadrifoglio Verde is a necessary compromise between speedy sports driving and safety, and for some the rear multilink suspension might be a little on the ‘polite’ side. The transmission, like on the other Giulietta model, is very very good, although sometimes you can be lulled into thinking there is less horse power under the bonnet that what you’ve actually got.
The Quadrifoglio version is a pleasing element to the overall Alfa Giulietta mix. It is an excellent offering for a large range of customers: it’s sparky, but sweet, and is focussed on providing control and precision in a car flexibile enough to meet many needs. You could drive it as a young woman, you could drive it as an older man, and the Giulietta will be exciting or docile enough for whoever. Alfa is counting on selling 40,000 models by the end of the year, with 50 percent dedicated to the Italian market. The long term aim is to reach 100,000 units sales per annum. With prices starting at 20,300 euros, they could make it. It’s not cheap, but it’s a very good, solid offering (and it comes in red).
