Alfa Romeo Giulietta QV 2016 new car review
When looking for a medium-sized performance car, there are some strong contenders in the $50,000 to $60,000 range.
When you’re looking for a medium-sized performance car, there are some extremely strong contenders in the $50,000 to $60,000 price range including the Peugeot 308 GTI, Subaru WRX STI, Renault Megane RS265 and Volkswagen Golf GTI. The Giulietta QV sits at $54,990.
The Giulietta is designed by the same person who designed the Maserati GranTurismo and Alfa Romeo 4C, two of my favourite cars. It brings some design flair to the party, as well as a 6-second dash to 100kmh.
On paper, it looks good and appears to take off like a cheetah after a gazelle, but there are some compromises. Vale la Pena? It’s an expression in Italian (and Spanish) that literally means ‘Is it worth the pain?’ Time to find out.
Worth it?
Pain is made bearable with some pleasure, and there are certainly some features that are stunning. The exterior design is all class with those red Brembo brake callipers peeping out from behind the 18-inch wheels. Pedestrians and other drivers seem appreciative of it.
Move your gaze to the inside and the embossed Alfa Romeo logos on the leather and Alcantara sports seats are almost wasted on your plebeian rib cage and the soles on your shoes are not worthy to place themselves on the embossed pedals.
Old-school
Aurally, the 177kW engine reminds me a little of old-school four-cylinder cars with a certain raucousness to it. Flick it into Dynamic mode and you’ll experience some hot hatch action, threading it through the bends, overtaking at ease. Ease it back into the all-weather mode and you’re good for sedate, around-town driving and motorway cruising. There’s an eco-mode, but it’s very lethargic and not in the Italian spirit.
The experience of driving the Giulietta is a balance of brilliance and frustration, both in the city and on the open road. It noticeably comes on-boost with some definite turbo lag if you don’t anticipate when you’ll need it to kick down a gear. You can use the paddle shifters but they could do with being 1cm longer to make them easier to reach.
It can feel a little bit jerky at low speeds around town where the DCT (dual-clutch) gearbox seems to struggle at times. At higher speeds, though, the gearbox is much better. It doesn’t seem to change as fast as the Golf, but it suits the power delivery, giving a pause which only accentuates the next turbo-enhanced burst of acceleration.
Emotions
When you put all emotion aside, the Alfa doesn’t stack up as a hot hatch against the benchmark Golf GTI. It’s missing slew equipment that absolutely should be on a car that’s over fifty-grand, for example, a reversing camera to compensate for its constrained rear visibility and any kind of driver assistance technology.
Some of the design is lacking thought – some dodgy plastics here and there, and a red LCD between the rev counter and odometer that could have come from a 1977 X-Wing targeting computer. There are things on the inside that are just not usable or ergonomic, like the slapdash arrangement of buttons and functions across the steering wheel, dashboard and stalks and the very scant legroom in the rear.
There’s very little cabin storage, no place to put a larger water bottle, and the rear seats don’t fold flat. The list just goes on and on, and it shouldn’t be like this in 2016 because we have usability experts, ergonomics experts and about 150 years of getting things wrong with vehicle interior design.
Then there’s the fuel economy which Alfa Romeo quotes as 7-litres per 100km, but in the real world, you’ll struggle to keep it out of double digits.
Quirky vehicle
In fact, there are so many things quirky about this QV that there is only one reason you will buy this and not a Golf GTI: to be part of the Alfa experience.
People stopped and looked. People pointed out of their passenger windows. People ogled the beautiful wheels. People asked me about it as I was getting in when it was parked on the street. They didn’t do this when I drove the Golf. Buying the Alfa is as much about other people as it is about you. This isn’t a bad thing; we all are influenced by the need to be special and to feel appreciated.
So, you can buy a Golf GTI and you’ll have a better driving experience, but no one makes decisions solely with their head.
Note: this was reviewed as a new vehicle
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Kyle Cassidy 
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