There's a lot riding on the success of the Alfa Romeo Giulia. The Italian carmaker has big plans for the next three years — pushing sales from 75,000 cars to 400,000 — and this sensuous saloon — created as an Italian alternative to the BMW 3-Series, the Mercedes-Benz C-Class and the Jaguar XE — is central to that ambitious mission. TopGear.com's Ollie Marriage recently jetted to Balocco, Italy, to savour some seat time in the top-spec Giulia, the 503-horsepower Quadrifoglio Verde. His reaction? "Alfa has finally built a belter. It’s actually a relief to be able to write that, to find that this time there doesn’t need to be any ifs or buts or qualifications or caveats — the Giulia is great. Full stop. End of."

On the engine:

Shoving the whole thing along is a 2.9-litre twin turbo V6 that is ‘inspired by Ferrari expertise and technologies’. It shares bore and stroke measurements with the eight cylinder Ferrari California T and comes from the same F154 engine family. It’s every bit as good as you hope an engine with Ferrari roots and overseen by an ex-Ferrari engineer (head of development Philippe Krief worked at Maranello until the Giulia programme began) would be: responsive, sharp, noisy, potent.

On the automatic transmission:

The 8-speed ZF is brilliant – the shifts are double-clutch instant, hit home the moment you ask for them, and the big paddles are good to use despite being column-mounted. Plenty of other firms use this gearbox, but as far as sporting applications go, I like it here better than anywhere else.

On the handling:

The Giulia is far less spiky and intimidating than the M3, a much more graceful mover and that vectoring differential is beautifully set up, allowing you to exit corners with a nip of oversteer and a wisp of smoke. Or play at being a complete hooligan. Traction is not only strong, but very predictable. I love the way this thing gets itself out of corners, it’s so communicative and biddable. And quick, too.

On the exterior:

There’s carbon for the front splitter, diffuser and side skirts, plus our car had the optional carbon ceramic brakes and both the roof and bonnet are carbon – the M3 makes do with just the carbon roof. So, plenty of carbon, all contributing to a claimed kerb weight of 1524kg – some 40kg lighter than the standard M3. There’s also 50:50 weight distribution, the wheels are deliriously beautiful, the bodywork is sculptural, elegant, achingly desirable and it’s painted in rich, thick, liquid three-layer Competizione Red.

On the interior:

If you do a direct comparison with the Audi A4 or BMW 3-Series, the Giulia isn’t as well built inside, [but] the design work is superb. It’s clean and simple, cleared of buttons and complexity, the infotainment screen is faired in, its menu system and rotary controller operate very like those in the BMW 3-Series. It works and works well. The driving position is spot on, there’s yards of reach adjustment on the steering so you can pull it into your chest for the full touring car experience, and the leather rim is lovely to hold.

On its place in the market:

This is no piecemeal, half-hearted rival to the BMW M3 and Mercedes-AMG C63, but a head on, carefully targeted, dead-set alternative. And not just the hot Quadrifoglio, but all Giulias – the model range will include everyday diesels and petrols, too.

On the big decision:

I run an M3 as my daily driver, have done over 11,000 miles in it now. I’ve bonded with it, forgiven its foibles, admire it tremendously, thoroughly enjoy living with it. And given a straight choice between it and the Giulia… I really don’t know. It’s that close. My practical side would say BMW because it’s a known quantity, but I reckon there’s a strong case for the Giulia being better to drive.

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