SA Road Tests

Welcome

This is the home of automobile road tests in South Africa. We drive South African cars, SUVs and LCVs under South African conditions. It also just happens that most of the vehicles we drive are world cars as well, so what you read here probably applies to the models you can get at home.
*To read one of our road tests, just select from the menu on the left.
*Please remember too, that prices quoted were those ruling on the days I wrote the reports.


We drive the 2011 Alfa Romeo Giulietta 1.4T MultiAir Distinctive

Priorities maintained

A British tester posed the question: "This new Giulietta is possibly the best car Alfa Romeo has built in its hundred years of existence, but is it the best Alfa?" Our response would be: "Probably not." By whining for years about everything imaginable, buyers persuaded motor manufacturers to deliver dull, politically correct transportation modules. They silenced the whirr of cam chains, deleted the rasp of open exhausts, dialled out steering feedback, smoothed out surges in engine response as second chokes whacked open and cams kicked in, and generally smothered the souls of driving machines forever. Now we long to have them back.

With constantly variable valve timing, computerised engine mapping and turbocharging came a new breed of cars. They pull like locomotives from almost zero rpm with no progression, no excitement and no simple joy of being. There is no Golf twitch, no BMW turbine whirr and no Alfa deliciousness. Everything is technically perfect; hardly anything goes wrong and blandness rules. They are as dull as yesterday's oatmeal; we feel cheated and there is no going back.

But there is hope. It's in the genes. Alfa Romeo calls it DNA. It's a three-position switch in front of the gear lever and it controls throttle response, steering assistance and more electronic driving aids than you can throw spicy meatballs at. Other manufacturers have similar devices that work with varying degrees of success, but this one has the best balance of properties we have come upon so far. Selectable on the fly, the three positions stand for 'dynamic,' 'normal' and 'all weather' - not particularly imaginative, but they fit.

'Normal' is for day to day driving and unlike some other manufacturers' versions, is perfectly acceptable all the time. Steering is light without being lifeless, the car responds quickly when the right foot demands and all the driving aids work normally. 'All weather' softens steering and throttle responses but you still have grunt in reserve should you need to deal with an emergency situation. 'Dynamic' sharpens the throttle, dials back some of the driver aids and reduces power assistance to the rack. What remains is pleasantly weighted steering with great feedback, reacting almost instinctively to minor inputs. It's just the thing for winding country roads and what our twenty-age nemesis, Sgt. van der Merwe of the old Durban City Police, used to call 'driving in a manner.'

The Giulietta is built on the Fiat group's new Compact platform, a modular setup that can be adjusted to work with a variety of wheelbases and track widths. It's designed to satisfy the most demanding customers in terms of road holding, agility and safety. Good dynamic performance and high comfort levels are a given.Three variants are available in South Africa; an 88 kW Progression using the old Fiat T-Jet motor, the 125 kW MultiAir Distinctive model on test here and the truly Alphalicious  1750 cc Quadrifoglio Verde. If you want to know about differences in specification, go across to our launch report here.

Getting down to nuts and bolts the boot, at 350 litres, is nicely shaped, loads at mid-thigh height, is about 20 cm deep and swallows a trolleyful of groceries without much trouble, yet allows for short stops at the butchery and another supermarket on your way home. The spare is a steel spacesaver. The rear seatback splits 60:40 and the ski slot opens from inside the boot. Bonusses include a 12-volt, 180-Watt socket, a light, four lashing rings and a pair of little corners to wedge small items into.

Tall passengers will find just enough headroom and knee space when seated in the back. There are three head restraints to go with the three seatbelts and ISOFix kiddie seat anchors are provided. A separate vent provides cool air and an ashtray looks after the needs of chronic polluters. Storage space is provided by way of seatback pockets and little door bins.
Up front, the ambience is slightly retro with three round air conditioner controls placed where a trio of gauges used to be in days gone by. The feeling can be reinforced with optional 'painted dash' centre panels in red or white, or in a 'brushed aluminium' finish. Also optional are aluminium-look foot controls. These positively scream where Alfa Romeo engineers' priorities lie - the accelerator pedal is biggest of all. Honesty is great, isn’t it?

Maintaining Alfa-ness, the traditional long-arms-and-short-legs driving position is retained, no matter how far you adjust the steering wheel outwards. Another gripe is that those with big feet cannot simply slide the left one off the clutch pedal when it's not being used. You have to consciously lift and place it underneath, where there isn't a footrest. On the other hand, if you're driving really quickly, wouldn't you want to keep your clutch foot hovering ready at all times? Nah!

So is this mid-range Giulietta a truly alpha Alfa? Does it recall the magic that made Alfa Romeo every young person's lust object through the 'fifties and beyond? We have to accept that the feel and sounds of a bygone era are just that - gone forever, but in the context of modern engine design and turbocharging, it's probably as close as we will ever get to what made those original versions special.

The numbers
Price: R284 200 basic, R293 450 as tested
Engine: 1368 cc MultiAir turbocharged
Power: 125 kW (170 BHP) at 5500 rpm
Torque: 230 Nm at 2250 rpm (250 Nm at 2500 rpm in dynamic mode)
Zero to 100 km/h: 8,31 seconds
Maximum speed: 218 km/h
Real life fuel consumption: about 8,6 l/100 km
Tank: 60 litres
Warranty: 5 years/150 000 km with 3 years' roadside assistance
Service plan: 6 years/90 000 km
Intervals: 30 000 km



Satnav and aluminium pedals are optional extras

What We Do

This is a one-man show, which means that road test cars entrusted to me are driven only by me. Some reviewers hand test cars over to their partners to use as day-to-day transport and barely experience them for themselves.

What this means to you is that every car reviewed is given my own personal evaluation and receives my own seat of the pants judgement - no second hand input here.
Every car goes through real world testing; on city streets littered with potholes, speed bumps and rumble strips, on freeways and if its profile demands, dirt roads as well.

My articles appear every Wednesday in the motoring pages of The Witness, South Africa's oldest continuously running newspaper, and occasionally on Saturdays in Weekend Witness as well. I drive eight to ten vehicles most months of the year (press cars are withdrawn over the festive season - wonder why?) so not everything gets published in the paper. Those that are, get a tagline but the rest is virgin, unpublished and unedited by the political-correctness police. Hope you like what you see, because there are no commercial interests at work here. As quite a few readers have found, I answer every serious enquiry from my home email address, with my phone numbers attached, so I do actually exist.

I am based in Pietermaritzburg, KZN, South Africa. This is the central hub of the KZN Midlands farming community; the place farmers go to buy their supplies and equipment, truck their goods to market, send their kids to school and go to kick back and relax.
So occasionally a cow, a goat or a horse may add a little local colour by finding its way into the story or one of the pictures. It's all part of the ambience!

Comments?
Want to ask a question, comment or just tell me you thoroughly disagree with what I say? That's your privilege, because if everybody agreed on everything, the world would be a boring place. All I ask is that you remain calm, so please blow off a little steam before venting too vigorously.