The Alfa Giulietta makes it to Ireland this summer
If a wonderful history and a great future are the key ingredients of a real thoroughbred, then the new Alfa Giulietta has them in spades.
Born earlier this month in the cool grounds of the Geneva Motor Show, it managed to raise the heart rate of even the coldest critics with its soft curves and cheeky looks.
But then its badge had already done that for the old codgers at the launch — each one flush with fond memories of Giulietta models stretching back more than half a century.
It’s a nameplate that has been worn with pride by some of Alfa’s most exciting coupes and spiders going back as far as the Giulietta Sprint in 1954.
And now it’s back — on the all-new replacement for the 147, which is expected to roll into Irish dealerships late June or early July.
Built on the Fiat group’s new C-platform, the new 5-door is aimed at buyers looking for a Golf with attitude — or a Focus with feeling.
Like the 147, the new model’s rear door handles are hidden to make it look like a three-door and it has the 147’s neatly sloped coupe shape at the rear too.
But the new design borrows much from the swift lines of the MiTo and, I reckon, sports quite a big hint of the 8C Competizione supercar — especially around the headlights and those tapering bonnet lines.
The car is longer, lower and wider than VW’s Golf and, promise Alfa, will beat its German rival on cabin space too.
But if your Gran loves the calm interior of the Golf or Focus, she’ll hate the full-on sports feel of the Giulietta, where red-lit instrumentation meets short-throw gearshift and sporty steering wheel with typical Italian abandon.
The new model will launch with four engine offerings — all turbocharged and fitted as standard with a stop/start system to cut fuel burn in traffic and around the city.
The line-up will include two petrol units — both 1.4-litre — offering 120 and 170bhp; a 105bhp 1.6-litre diesel; and a 2-litre diesel offering 170bhp.
The clever buyer however will ignore all of these and wait until the 235bhp 1.8-litre TBi races in early next year with its Quadrifoglio Verde badging (that’s green cloverleaf to you lot in the back) and Golf GTI-baiting performance.
Granted its circa €30,000 asking price will be near ten grand more than the entry-level unit, but its 134hp per litre is the highest in the world for a 4-cylinder unit in this type of car.
Its max torque of 340 Newton metres at 1,900rpm is class leading also.
Which explains why some Golf GTI owners are now busy reading up on the history of Alfa’s Giulietta — as they face a future of explaining to their passengers exactly what type of Alfa that was that just overtook them.