ABDC 2017: Alfa Romeo Giulia QV

Not ranked

A score that ranked the Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio Verde (QV) anywhere outside the top three in Australia’s Best Drivers Car 2017 was sure to be controversial.

This car has been singularly tasked with re-launching one of the world’s most storied automotive brands. Therefore, by definition, the Giulia QV represents Alfa’s state of the art.

The Giulia QV is indeed the foundation to lift Alfa’s stocks. This car is the one to underwrite the Italian icon’s fightback, to position Alfa as one of the most desirable sporting marques on the planet. There is much riding on the QV’s handsome and very masculine shoulders.

When I gave Alfa Romeo Australia a heads-up on the performance of our QV at ABDC, the crew there was mortified… Shocked. And they kicked the result upstairs. There followed three days of phone calls and ultimately a video conference. If time had permitted, Alfa head office would have put its engineers on the plane.

Given the passionately favourable overseas reports and even our own local racetrack ‘first impressions’ of the Giulia QV and launch road test, it arrived at ABDC 2017 as one of the short-priced favourites. I had it pegged for top three – at least.

After a short on-road drive in Melbourne, I was less bullish but still held hope the Alfa would shine once the roads became interesting. First impressions count and the Giulia QV did so right off the bat with its sheer stomp — and no shortage of aural character. It looked the business too — bulges and curves in equal measure in all the right places.

And it seemed the word had spread about a car ready to take the fight up to the BMW M and Mercedes-AMG rear-drive duopoly — even as we queued to board the Spirit Of Tasmania, the Alfa Romeo Giulia QV drew a crowd of onlookers.

But then it went downhill…

On the at-first wet roads of Tasmania, our QV was, frankly, a handful. The super-sharp steering delivered so much bite and turn-in, it was easy to overpower the natural grip and balance the QV should have provided.

As the roads dried that trait didn’t disappear -- the limits and therefore stakes just became higher. A little like having a Tasmanian Tiger by the tail.

As one of the most experienced drivers on the ABDC test team, feeling so at sea with the Giulia QV had me deeply concerned. It turned out I wasn’t alone. Even our racers, Greg Crick and Luke Youlden, had mixed feelings.

“On the road, the QV makes the right noises and can be very quick — even if it's choppy over sections the Cayman S covered effortlessly. On the [dry] racetrack it was fast but harsh and unnerving — especially in race mode,” Crick commented.

Although each of our 12 judges made their own drive notes (and scores) privately, there emerged very consistent themes: overly fast steering and poor handling were almost unanimous. Most of the team also talked to a mismatch of control feel and efforts.

But essentially it was steering – and the car’s sketchiness under brakes on the road -- that were the biggest concerns. The car followed road cambers like a demon and did everything it could to erode our drivers’ confidence.

“I really want to love this car, but it just doesn't deliver the engagement at the wheel that it promises. Steering feels artificial and drastically different between drive modes and is far too twitchy,” Nadine Armstrong noted.

“Steering is super light and lacks feedback and although the suspension is soft and ‘wallowy’ in normal mode, it's ‘skatey’ in sport [Dynamic] and above,” Marton Pettendy said.

We pushed through to the end of our ABDC testing – along the way, the Giulia still impressed in terms of pace at the track. Luke Youlden wrung the QV’s neck at Baskerville to record one of the very fastest laps. It was also quick at the dragstrip – even with an unprepared surface.

With those steering complaints so unwavering among the judges, however, after returning to Melbourne we took the unprecedented step of checking the test QV’s suspension geometry against Alfa Romeo’s factory’s specifications.

Our readings showed significantly more toe-out than standard, both front and rear. This would not only sharpen turn-in, but it is also likely to exaggerate steering ‘nervousness’. It’s also likely to have contributed to instability under brakes and extreme front tyre wear.

Cue the heads-up to the manufacturer, a number of phone calls and the eventual video conference -- and this Alfa Romeo Australia’s official statement…

“Alfa Romeo Australia acknowledges that the suspension geometry data presented by motoring.com.au does not align with official factory settings for the Alfa Romeo Giulia QV.

“Alfa Romeo Australia will subject the Giulia QV test vehicle to a comprehensive diagnostic analysis to ascertain whether the vehicle’s specifications had in fact deviated from factory settings, as indicated by motoring.com.au preliminary findings, during the vehicle’s time on loan.”

There were other aspects to the behaviour of ‘our’ QV that were also the subject of discussion with Alfa Romeo Australia. These included brake pedal feel and jerky power delivery at pace on the track in Race mode. We flagged these with HQ too.

Given Alfa’s response and the sharp contrast of our experience in Tasmania with other drive reports worldwide, we’ve therefore taken the unprecedented decision not to officially rank the Giulia QV in ABDC 2017.

Instead, it will come back in 2018!

In the meantime, Alfa Romeo will provide another QV for us to re-evaluate and compare to it key rivals. At that point, at least three of the ABDC judges will re-evaluate the Giulia. We’ll fast-track those impressions.

For the moment, however, it’s a case of what might have been…

2017 Alfa Romeo Giulia QV pricing and specifications:
Price: $143,900 (plus on-road costs)
Engine: 2.9-litre V6 turbo-petrol
Output: 375kW/600Nm
Transmission: Eight-speed automatic
Fuel: 8.2L/100km (ADR Combined)
CO2: 189g/km (ADR Combined)
Safety Rating: Five-star ANCAP

2017 Alfa Romeo Giulia QV performance figures (as tested):
0-100km/h: 4.835
0-400m: 12.409sec @ 192.223km/h
Lap time: 58.728sec

ABDC 2017
>> 1st - HSV GTSR W1
>> 2nd - Porsche Cayman S
>> 3rd - Ford Focus RS
>> 4th - BMW M140i
>> 5th - BMW M3 Competition
>> 6th - Audi S5 Coupe
>> 7th - Mercedes-AMG C 43
>> Track test - The fastest ever
>> A sideways glance at ABDC
>> 8th - Volkswagen Golf GTI 40 Years
>> Stats never lie – ABDC by the numbers
>> All the ABDC FAQs
>> 10th - Abarth 124 Spider
>> Quarter-mile bragging rights
>> Meet the judges
>> 11th - Nissan GT-R

>> In search of Australia's Best Driver's Car 2017