Alfa Romeo Giulia 2020 Review – International

The new-generation Alfa Romeo Giulia was the car intended to break the German marques’ hegemony on the premium mid-size segment. Italian spice versus the meat and potatoes that Germany’s big three constantly dish up.

But the grand sales plan that late Fiat Chrysler Automobiles chief Sergio Marchionne laid out in 2014, which the Giulia was supposed to spearhead, hasn’t come to fruition.

Alfa needed to shift 400,000 cars worldwide in 2018, according to the abrasive boss, but it fell well short of half of that figure last year. Locally, it fared no better.

So, the Guilia has not been a disruptor of the compact executive sector, more of a machine that caused a very mild distortion. This doesn’t alter the fact that the Giulia was (and is) a great drive.

However, there was one area in which it felt well behind the curve -- the interior. While there were some mighty high touchpoints, like the slender steering wheel and the lovely seats with a near-perfect driving position (and a pair of big metal paddle shifters sourced straight from the Gods), there were also plenty of parts of the Giulia’s cabin that were considerably less than heavenly.

Take the eight-speed automatic’s shifter, for example, which was cheap with sharp plastic fittings, right where your trigger finger would hook round it. Or the infotainment system, which looked like its graphics were drawn up on an Etch-A-Sketch and displayed on a piddling screen.

Or the dated instrument cluster display, or the low-rent plastics clothing many of the surfaces, or the almost laughably flimsy tunnel-mounted rotary controller for the infotainment system… Get the message?

From launch, there were no problems with the way the Giulia drove. Nor with the way it looked. Hence this update for the 2020 model year changes nothing but the very areas that so desperately needed addressing.

The cynical might say the Alfa Romeo Giulia was rushed to market in 2016 before it was fully ready -- resulting in a saloon with a ‘that’ll do’ cabin and a hope that its chassis talents would blind naysayers to the worst of its interior transgressions.

And certainly, for the stonking Quadrifoglio version, there’s a strong case for that, as the strikingly good bits easily outweighed the bad.

Yet, for the 2.0-litre turbo-petrol and 2.2-litre turbo-diesel (which at 2143cc is really a 2.1) variants, the balancing act between pros and cons was finer. Whether that was what put buyers off the Alfa or not first time around remains to be seen.

In any event, the 2020 iteration of the Alfa Romeo Giulia now gets a much nicer leather-wrapped gear lever with illuminated markings. The steering wheel is new, too, although this isn’t quite such uniformly good news, as the rim is thicker than it was before (although not comically fat, like a BMW M Sport wheel).

The infotainment system has been hugely updated with screens displaying more information vertically along the edges to give a clearer field of view in the centre. It’s also touch-sensitive now, although Alfa has retained the control wheel on the transmission tunnel and even upgraded it to be notably nicer to use.

Elsewhere, Alfa Romeo has fiddled with the steering and swathed the passenger compartment with additional sound-deadening. We’d swear blind that the materials used on the dash-top and door cards are now of a higher, soft-touch quality, and then there’s a ream of new Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) developed by German giant Bosch.

These include Lane Keeping Assist, Active Blind Spot Assist, Active Cruise Control, Traffic Sign Recognition with Intelligent Speed Control, Traffic Jam Assist and Highway Assist, and Driver Attention Assist, which are now all part of the bundle.

These are controlled via, and their warnings displayed on, a fresh 7.0-inch TFT display in the instrument cluster, which is much more of the moment than what went before.

Mechanically, nothing has changed for the 2020 Alfa Romeo Giulia. In Europe, the same engines with between 100 and 206kW in the regular range are offered with the same eight-speed automatic transmission.

Note, however, that the 375kW Quadrifoglio is, so far, not part of this update, but will follow some time 2020.

As of right now, Alfa Romeo Australia has not provided prices, specs nor even local release timing for the MY20 Giulia, so we have to assume our line-up will remain the same.

Currently priced from $56,900 drive-away, Alfa Romeo Australia’s all-petrol MY19 range comprises the 147kW/330Nm Giulia and Super, and the 206kW/400Nm Veloce.

At the European launch, we managed to drive a Giulia variant that’s unlikely to come to Australia in the form of the most potent (140kW/450Nm) 2.1-litre turbo-diesel in the Sprint specification, would sit between the Super and Veloce grades offered here.

Nevertheless the turbo-diesel is a fine engine – a bit noisy on start-up and raucous when extended beyond 3500rpm – and there’s more than enough punch to get the Giulia romping along at a fair old lick.

We’d expect the petrol versions to continue to do the same and indeed Alfa continues to claim a 6.6-second 0-100km/h time for the 147kW models, dropping to 5.7 for the 206kW Veloce.

Undoubtedly, however, it’s the refinement that has enjoyed the most remarkable upswing here. If you’re thinking all the above changes are minor and not worth reporting on, let us assure you the devil is in the detail.

The Giulia just feels better to the touch. As your hands fall upon the wheel and gear lever, it exudes more class in a cabin that’s maybe still not sector-leading but which is undoubtedly far closer to the leading lights from Germany.

The 2020 Alfa Romeo Giulia is quieter to cruise in, more comfortable in the ride department and the suppression of noise is closer to all-encompassing, thanks to the improvements to the sound-deadening.

Yet it has lost none of that Giulia chassis sparkle. It’s still such a rewarding, well-sorted car dynamically that the only real shame is that the traction and stability controls are not fully switchable -- they’re always on to some degree.

Nevertheless, this is a well thought-out and highly effective round of updates. The Giulia’s weakest areas – interior finishing and tech – have been bolstered, while none of its strengths have been eroded. Now, we just need some clarity on exactly when the updated Giulias will arrive Down Under.

So if that disruption of the German-dominated executive class is forthcoming, then the 2020 Alfa Romeo Giulia is the car that deserves to generate all the right shockwaves.

How much does the 2020 Alfa Romeo Giulia 2.2d Sprint cost?
Price: TBC (currently from $56,900 drive-away)
Available: TBC
Engine: 2.1-litre four-cylinder turbo-diesel
Output: 140kW/450Nm
Transmission: Eight-speed automatic
Fuel: 4.7L/100km (ADR combined)
CO2: 126g/km (ADR combined)
Safety rating: five star (ANCAP 2016)