AMG

My change of heart comes courtesy of the 2017 Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio (a manual one of those) and a 4.1-kilometer racing circuit with a 950-meter straightaway and loads of fast, technical corners designed to upset the car’s balance. But before we get underway with this track test, we first need talk about the myth of Alfa Romeo and the brand’s recent history.As you might have heard from Top Gear and various other motoring juggernauts, you can’t be a true petrolhead until you’ve owned an Alfa. This assertion is nothing more than whitewash that sounds nice, but it doesn’t hold water. Don’t get me wrong, I’m head over heels over the brand, yet overhype turns the discerning enthusiast into nothing more than a skeptic.Beyond this irresolute make-believe, borrowing an assortment of bits from Fiat is another doodad that doesn’t help Alfa Romeo ’s ethos. The MiTo? Yeah, that rides on a platform shared with the Fiat Grande Punto and Opel Corsa. The Giulietta? It shares its backbone with the likes of the Dodge Dart and Chrysler 200. Not accounting for the 4C, how about the fact that Alfa stopped making RWD cars in 1994, when the RZ was killed off? How about the fact Alfa Romeo's previous RWD sedan is the 75, a model discontinued in 1992?With these things in mind, Monday morning saw me setting off for the track day event without too many expectations in my heart about the 2017 Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio. I thought to myself, “Well, there can’t be one too many rivals for the M3 and C63. Too bad everyone is trying to copy what BMW and Mercedes do in this segment.” Spoiler alert: I was proven wrong. All those automotive journos who waxed lyrical about the Giulia Quadrifoglio were right. The hype for this super sedan is indeed real.Before I got my turn behind the wheel of the manual-equipped Giulia Quadrifoglio, I’ve jumped into the diesel-powered Giulia with the ZF-developed 8-speed automatic. That will have to wait until the end of this story, though, because the Four-Leal Clover variant is, for all intents and purposes, an utterly different animal from the Giulia in regular-Joe form.The first thing that catches your eye about the Giulia Quadrifoglio isn’t its proportions, mons pubis-shaped grille or the carbon fiber hood with two vents for good measure. It’s the way gracefulness interweaves with muscularity, thus providing sexiness and badassery and beefiness at the same time. Think weightlifter dressed in a tailor-made suit. The carbon fiber lip spoiler ? It's an active unit that governs downforce behavior, so it’s both show and go.The profile, on the other hand, is a nod to the Giulietta Sprint from days long gone by. While on the subject of exterior design, it must be noted that the nose sits low to the ground, which could prove troublesome when you drive up a driveway at an angle. But hey, that’s a small price to pay in return for what you’re getting with the awe-inspiring Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio.Once you open the door, the optional carbon-back sport seats might seem too over the top for a car that, at the end of the day, is a sedan with room for four (or five at a squeeze). Rear legroom and headroom aren’t bad, though the M3 fares better in this area. Up front, the body-hugging seats are uncannily comfortable for what they are. The bolstering ensures a snug fit, but it isn’t so aggressive that it hurts your spleen when cornering hard.And now, prepare for some niggles. See the buttons on the steering wheel? For whatever reason, two of them are not illuminated. So if you're driving at night, not used to their location and function, you'll be hard pressed to find what you're looking for. Another thing that isn't on par with this vehicle's personality is the gear knob of the manual transmission. I found the knob that little bit too slippery in my right hand, especially in scenarios where I needed to drop down a few gears during hard braking to prepare for corner entry.The moment you press the red start button on the left side of the steering wheel, the 2.9-liter twin-turbo V6 roars into life exuberantly, then it settles down, purring like a kitty. That’s Ferrari-like, no doubt about it. But then again, it’s no coincidence either because the aluminum unit shares the V angle (90 degrees), bore (86.5 mm), and stroke (82 mm) with the 3.9-liter twin-turbo V8 in the Ferrari California T . If you want to experience the aural pleasure of the engine at full-on rumble, you will need to engage Race mode.Do that, and you’ll probably end up wrapped around the tree located at the outside of a corner. Even the race instructors at the track event found the Giulia Quadrifoglio tricky to control in its most hardcore driving mode, especially mid-corner. The go-faster professors also called attention to the fact that it’s easy to break traction to get the tail out, yet it’s tricky to keep things under control. Given the input from people that know how to drive considerably better than I do, I didn’t take chances with the Giulia Q in Race mode. The outside temperature was another impediment at 10°C (50°F).And so, I strapped myself in the hot seat, put the DNA selector in the next best mode after Race, and set off on a gentle lap to get an idea of how the car transfers weight during cornering, how the carbon-ceramic brakes bite, the whole nine yards. After snatching first and easing off the clutch with a small dab of the loud pedal, the first impression I got from the Giulia Q is that it is a breeze to drive it normally. The lightness of the clutch and the not-too-zealous throttle mapping make it feel as if it’s just your regular compact executive sedan, not a hot-blooded machine with 503 horsepower (510 PS).After exiting the pit lane, I started rowing through the gears all the way to fourth when the time came to downshift to second and prepare for a late-apex corner. In this scenario, the 19-inch Pirelli P Zero Corsa tires didn’t fail to show why Pirelli is up there at the top. Sure they wear faster than less performance-oriented tires, but goodness gracious they’re grippy and they effortlessly put the nose exactly where you point the front wheels. It's no wonder the boffins at Pirelli and Alfa Romeo's engineers spent approximately 10 months to get the composition right for the Giulia Quadrifoglio's tires.This gets me to the steering, which I’m afraid to say that it’s not perfect. It is precise, I’ll give the Giulia Quadrifoglio that, but it lacks what the driving buffs refer to as weightiness. I wasn’t expecting an electric steering system to allow me to feel every pebble the front tires roll across because that isn’t doable with the technology we have right now. The truth is, however, that the steering wheel feels too light, a setting that could translate in too much steering angle in scenarios such as when the driver is remotely distracted from the act of driving. At just 2 turns lock-to-lock, the fast gearing comes in handy in slower corners and, to some extent, when driving in the city.Moving on to the manual transmission, it’s a joy to row through the gears of the ZF S6-53 6-speeder in the Giulia Quadrifoglio . You’ll have to do that a lot, chiefly due to the engine’s maximum torque band. The 443 lb-ft or 600 Nm sweet spot is available from 2,500 rpm, noticeably higher than the BMW M3’s 1,850 rpm and Mercedes-C63’s 1,750 rpm. I wouldn’t have it any other way, though, because revving the hell out of the Alfa’s V6 bathes the cabin with aggressive induction noise and a simply intoxicating exhaust note.Tipping the scales at 1,524 kg (3,360 lbs; DIN) and benefitting from a 50:50 weight distribution, the Giulia Quadrifoglio is willing to change direction with the eagerness of an overexcitable Jack Russell. An added benefit to the low weight and perfect distribution is that the handling dynamics give you a sense of predictability, making it easier to get close to your and the car's limits. If, however, you overcook a corner (I did it more than once, I admit that), it is remarkable how responsive the Giulia Q is when you try to correct your mistake with a small tap of the throttle or some counter-steering action.If I were to sum up how the Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio handles on a (quite cold) track, I’d need only two words: nicely progressive. Even the active rev match of the transmission, which goes against my heel-and-toe school of thought, makes a damn fine job of keeping the rear end stable when downshifting. Ride quality is another detail that Alfa Romeo got bang on.The superlative chassis setup and carefully tuned driving enhancers such as the torque vectoring double-clutch rear diff are tell-tale signs this four-door sedan was developed by a team of very talented people. While on the subject of research & development, a gentleman going by the name of Philippe Krief assembled the engineers that made this vehicle handle as good as it does.“Philippe who?” That Philippe who oversaw R&D of the mind-blowingly good Ferrari 458 Speciale . Since June 2016, this guy is Ferrari’s direttore tecnico and, for what it’s worth, the Giulia Quadrifoglio feels as if it’s the closest thing to actually jumping aboard the Prancing Horse bandwagon. When you remember that manuals have been abandoned by Ferrari for the sake of 0 to 60 times, the Giulia Quadrifoglio makes even more sense as a driver's car.Against the M3 and C63, the Giulia Q doesn’t give you the impression that Alfa Romeo tried to challenge the status quo. It did it in its own way, imbuing the Four-Leaf Clover with specialness and sense of occasion the German rivals could only dream of. Given the circumstances and based on the fact that life is too short to not enjoy it to the fullest extent, the Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio gets a well-deserved thumbs up from me. It surely deserves it.Be that as it may, there’s no denying that most people in the market for the Giulia will probably settle for the turbo diesel with the automatic box. From the driver’s seat, the cabin design makes it more appealing than a 3 Series or a C-Class . There are a handful of iffy plastics here and there, but the Giulia’s interior gives the impression that Alfa Romeo one-upped its build quality by a substantial margin as compared to yesteryear’s 159, the Giulia's forebear.Then there’s the 2.2-liter diesel engine in 178 hp (180 PS) tune. When compared to old-gen JTDm units, Alfa Romeo’s first-ever all-aluminum diesel is an all-new design. To be utterly honest, it’s very quiet for what it is, even under load. Also, it doesn’t run out of puff higher in the rev range as easily as other diesels of similar displacement. The ZF 8HP cog swapper is yet another highlight, but not due to the optional aluminum paddle shifters. It’s because the tranny shifts up or down immediately after you tell it so in a way the ZF 8HP automatic transmission in the BMW 320d simply cannot replicate.That’s about all I’ll tell you about lesser Giulias such as the 2.2-liter diesel . Fret not, though. In due time, you’ll be able to read a full-length test drive on autoevolution about the oil-burning variant of the Alfa Romeo Giulia.