As I approached my car in the parking lot after dinner one evening, I rounded the corner to find four people surrounding it, capturing photos of every angle of the svelte Italian sedan. Similar incidents would happen three more times during my weekend with the 2017 Alfa Romeo Giulia Ti.

I was given the opportunity to look after this car for a weekend on behalf of Jim Ellis Alfa Romeo Maserati Atlanta. Alfa Romeo is no stranger to the U.S., but the marque has not had a presence in this country in over twenty years. After many years of rumors, promises and tentative release dates, this storied Italian manufacturer has finally hit our shores with 2017 being the first year for their full product line, which includes the racy 4C Coupe & Spider, the new Stelvio SUV, and of course the Giulia sedan. These cars were on display at Festivals of Speed in Alpharetta, Georgia, and for many in attendance, this was among the first chances they got to see an Alfa Romeo, in the metal, outside of a showroom.

Alfa Romeo has a rich 100+ year history, with a very successful presence in racing, and a legacy that predates all of the most exotic Italian manufacturers out there. In fact, Ferrari’s famous prancing horse emblem was first featured on an Alfa Romeo race car, driven at Spa 24-Hours in 1932 by Enzo Ferrari himself. Today however, the brand is mostly associated with Dustin Hoffman’s character in “The Graduate,” as well as automotive journalist Jeremy Clarkson’s assertion that no one can be a true car enthusiast until they’ve owned an Alfa Romeo. Festivals of Speed, as well as my weekend alone with the Giulia, was an exciting opportunity to reintroduce Alfa Romeo to the American luxury market.

My date for the weekend was a 2017 Giulia Ti RWD, loaded up with the 19″ Sport Package which does its best impression of the scintillating Quadrifoglio featuring aggressive front and rear fascias, and a set of gorgeous 5-Hole phone-dial style wheels. Finished in the Vesuvio Grey, one of twelve available colors, my test car looked positively sinister. Yellow brake calipers (also available in red, silver, or black) add a welcome splash of color and top off the exotic aesthetic of the exterior.

The Giulia sports uniquely beautiful, if somewhat polarizing styling. The gentle curves, creases and bulges of the front end all flow outwards from Alfa Romeo’s iconic triangular grille to form a long, shapely hood. This long hood is further exaggerated by the relatively tall passenger cabin, giving the Giulia a very athletic stance. By comparison, the rear-end is a bit more conservative, featuring very Audi-like tail lamps, but the diffuser-style rear valence and the large exhaust tip finishers add a distinctive touch to the handsome rear end. From a distance, the Giulia has a familiar European luxury shape, but upon closer inspection you’ll find subtle but muscular and voluptuous curves and lines all throughout the body that really set this car apart from its German contemporaries.

Unique cues aside, it’s easy to overlook this car’s styling when you see fifteen to twenty of them parked next to each other at a dealership, but out on the road among the hundreds of other faceless transportation appliances, the Giulia stands out in a big way. This car caught a lot of eyes during my short stint with it; whether that’s thanks to its design-work, or indeed the fact that few have even seen an Alfa Romeo before, it’s certainly a head-turner.

The familiar but unique theme continues to the interior, which is available with a few combinations of leather and trim options. Red-blooded Alfisti will notice subtle nods to Alfas of old, such as the round ball-and-socket air vents and the deeply hooded gauge cluster. The Ti Sport’s interior can be had in black, like my test car, a vibrant red shown below, and a delectable chocolate brown.

The Ti Lusso, a luxury-oriented package adds cream-colored leather to the pallet, along with a very attractive open-pore walnut wood trim. Black and red leather fit the sporty Italian character of this car well, but the Ti Lusso’s lighter interior option adds a real sense of warmth to the cabin, something that the Giulia’s German rivals have rarely captured.

The cabin feels properly luxurious and unapologetically Italian, but there are a few signs here and there that Alfa Romeo is still a bit of a new kid on the block in this class. For example, the expanse of hard plastic just under the climate controls which houses nothing more than a single USB port seems like a lot of wasted real-estate, especially since interior storage is a bit scant. The top of the dash also features a pebbled surface which feels a out-of-place against the buttery leather in the rest of the cabin, but a $995 leather package (standard on the Ti Lusso) takes care of this, replacing the textured surface on the dash and doors with a black leather wrap and color-contrasted stitching.

The Ti Sport’s seats are wonderfully supple and supportive, with adjustable side bolsters and thigh extensions. Rear seat accommodation is a little tight for this class, but at 5’10” myself, I was able to slide in comfortably behind myself in all five seats. Of course, no Italian car would be complete without its quirks. For better or for worse, the interior layout is pretty familiar but there are a couple of oddities to be found here and there. I’m surprised that the sleek, sweeping Alfa Connect infotainment screen does not respond to touch, but the controller knob on the center console is quite intuitive to use, the graphics are crisp and modern, and it keeps the dash clean of fingerprints. It’s arguably a far simpler layout than other infotainment systems I’ve seen, and critics may call it “outdated,” however I appreciate the clean layout and ease-of-use. Too many manufacturers’ infotainment systems bury their features under layers of menus in a mission to appear more advanced, but this can frustrate users and distract from the driving experience. The placement of a couple of controls seemed odd, such as the buttons on either ends of the wiper and turn signal stalks which control the lane departure warning, if equipped, and the various pages on the gauge cluster’s 7″ TFT screen. This is also the only modern car I can think of that is equipped with rear foglights, but none in front.

Another slightly odd thing of note; the driving position is plenty comfortable, but the placement of the front seat puts your head right in line with the B-Pillar, unless you happen to be especially short. This isn’t as distracting as it seems on paper, thanks to the Giulia’s refreshingly tall greenhouse, which adds to the airy atmosphere of the cabin and offers far better all-around visibility than one usually finds on most modern cars. This placement also puts you closer to the center of the car, which likely contributes a great deal to the Giulia’s absolutely ethereal driving experience.

You only need to back this car out of a parking space to feel how perfectly calibrated and weighted the steering is. The thin-rimmed Ferrari-esque steering wheel, complete with a starter button tucked between its spokes, delivers very light, but extremely responsive feedback with a sharp turn-in and zero on-center slack. A rapid 11.8:1 steering ratio with only 2.3 turns lock-to-lock makes changing direction and handling curves telepathic. The Ti Sport package includes a detail on the steering wheel which I really appreciate; the rim is wrapped in leather, but the major touch-points just below the grip-extensions and around the inner rim along the bottom of the wheel are covered in an interesting synthetic woven material. This adds a bit of grip, without making your hands clammy the way leather would, and it feels great to the touch. It’s clear that a lot of focus went into the sensory experience of driving, which has been Alfa Romeo’s signature since their inception.

Shifting is handled by a ZF 8-Speed that’s become ubiquitous in the industry, and for good reason. Shifting is comfortably quick and responsive, and while enthusiasts will forever yearn for a real, three-pedal, manual transmission, manual mode in the Giulia is its own kind of fun thanks to Alfa Romeo’s attention to detail. The large aluminum paddles, fixed to the steering column as they should be rather than on the wheel itself, look fantastic and are a joy to use; the broad size and fixed position makes them easy to grab no matter where your hand is on the steering wheel, and they make a very satisfying *click-click* as you fly through the gears. A manual transmission certainly fits the character of Alfa Romeo, but the feedback from the paddles feels strong and mechanical, offering a different way to enjoy the car. Hopefully, a traditional stick-shift is still on the books for the U.S.

Just past the joystick shifter, to the left of the rotary control pad is the DNA Drive Mode selector; N is for Natural, the car’s default driving mode. A is for All-Weather, or “Advanced Efficiency” depending on which model you’re in. They both perform the same function, pulling back on power output in an effort to save fuel, and/or keep the tires from spinning in slippery conditions. D for Dynamic is where I left my car for most of the weekend. Many cars come with some form of sport mode, and a small detail I liked about Alfa Romeo’s setup is that it is an actual switch, rather than a button or an on-screen menu option, so the car can be left in that mode, rather than the driver having to reactivate this mode every time they start the car. If only the applied the same thought to the auto-stop/start ignition; I have yet to meet anyone who enjoys this fuel-saving feature. Dynamic mode adds some weight to the steering, sharpens throttle response, and turns gear-shifts into an delightfully urgent experience. With the throttle matted in Dynamic mode, the Giulia lunges between gears, like a cheetah mid-chase that’s just caught a second wind.

The Ti Performance Package, equipped on my car, adds a mechanical rear-differential and a button on top of the DNA selector which can firm up the dampers in Dynamic mode. Even with firm dampers and low-profile tires, ride-quality is sublime with zero trade-off in driving dynamics, a quality that was once reserved only for the most “ultimate” of driving machines.

The a 2.0 liter turbocharged inline-four is currently the only engine on offer for the Giulia proper, offering 280 bhp and 306 lb.ft. besting all of its competitors’ turbo-fours. The engine redlines early at 5500 RPM which is uncharacteristic of an Italian four-cylinder, but the turbocharger delivers an ample dose of torque, with only the faintest bit of lag below 2000 RPM. Alfa Romeo would certainly do well with another engine option to bridge the wide gap between this and the 505 bhp Quadrifoglio – perhaps a detuned version of the biturbo V-6 from that car with a power output in the mid 300s? The company has quite a history for making fabulous sounding V-6 engines, after all.

In that regard, the Giulia’s 2.0 liter has a pleasant snarl for an inline-four, but a little more turbocharger-hiss and a little snap, crackle, and pop on the overrun would be a welcome aural addition. Perhaps the Quadrifoglio’s raucous exhaust note is still echoing in my ears, and I accept that there are many buyers out there who would expect their small European luxury sedan to be quiet. The motor’s best quality however, is its placement. Cylinder number one is positioned right over the front axle, making this a front-mid-engine layout, and pushing the weight distribution slightly rearward to 49.2/50.8 front-to-back, and a perfect 50/50 with a driver. This stands out in the way the car dances through corners and plants itself during acceleration. Brembo brakes will stop the Giulia from 70 mph in a competitive 163 ft., and they give none of that gravelly chatter during anti-lock incidents. All in all, the Giulia earns its sport sedan stripes with flying colors.

The Giulia starts at $39,995, and my loaded Ti Sport came in at $50,390. This includes a long list of equipment such as a Harmon Kardon 10-Speaker audio system, navigation, and an array of driver-assistance features such as radar cruise control, blind-spot monitoring, and lane departure warning. An overwhelming majority of guests at Festival of Speed, where this car was displayed, were pleasantly surprised stating that this car didn’t cost nearly as much as they thought it would.

To that end, Alfa Romeo is excellently placed in the small executive sedan market. A Mercedes-Benz will be quieter and smoother, an Audi may offer more technology, a Cadillac will have more rebates piled on the hood, and a BMW may carry a stronger reputation, but the Alfa Romeo dives head-first into this competitive class with smart pricing, loads of equipment, unforgettable styling, an impressive arsenal of distinctive driving qualities, and an unconventional charm that could only come from Italy. Its flaws and quirks are more than made up for by its bevy of positive qualities.

Alfa Romeo has had a long-anticipated return to the U.S., and after a $250,000 Halo car here, and a triple-distilled track-toy there, the legendary cross-and-serpent badge is back with a proper product line and an established nationwide dealership network. The company’s laser-beam focus on driving pleasure make the Giulia stand far apart from other marques, and it serves as a reminder of what enthusiasts love about European sport-sedans; something that’s been diluted by manufacturers who may have gotten too lost in prioritizing technology that isolates the driver from the experience of driving, or those that have become complacent in resting on their laurels, or their purported reputation. The Giulia shows its soul in its design, its dynamics, and even its name; no alphanumeric part numbers or engine codes to be found here – this car is bestowed with a real name, and a pretty one at that.

Alfa Romeo has a long and impressive history to draw upon, and they’ve done an excellent job of capturing and showing off their most important principles in their reentry to America.

Giulia, I think I’m in love.

2017 Alfa Romeo Giulia Ti RWD

Base Price: $39,995 ($50,540 as equipped)

Engine: 1993 cc (122 cu.in.) Turbocharged & Intercooled SOHC, Direct Injection, Aluminum Block & Head

Transmission: 8-Speed Automatic w/ Manual Shifting Mode

Horsepower: 280 bhp @ 5200 RPM

Torque: 306 lb.ft. @ 2000 RPM

Performance

Zero to 60 mph: 5.7 sec

Zero to 100 mph: 14.7 sec

Zero to 130 mph: 30.1 sec

Standing ¼-mile: 14.3 sec @ 99 mph

Top Speed: 149 mph

Braking, 70-0 mph: 163 ft

Lateral Grip: 0.88 g

EPA combined/city/highway: 27/24/33 mpg

Dimensions

Wheelbase: 111.0 in

Length: 182.8 in

Width: 73.2 in

Height: 56.5 in

Passenger Volume: 94 cu ft

Trunk volume: 13 cu ft

Curb Weight: 3636 lbs.