SA Road Tests

Welcome

This is the home of automobile road tests in South Africa. I drive South African cars, SUVs and LCVs under real-world South African conditions. Most, but not all, the vehicles driven are world cars as well, so what you read here possibly applies to the models you get where you live.

My most recent drive is on the home page. Archived reviews and opinion pieces are in the active menu down the left side. Hover your cursor over a heading or manufacturer's name and follow the drop-down.


Review: 2015 Alfa Romeo Giulietta 1750 Quadrifoglio Verde

The sound track of misspent youth

Posted 1 September 2015

Small pic of standard SA 18" wheel by author

Interior pic from the Internet

The numbers
Price: R432 900
Engine: 1742 cc, belt driven DOHC, 16-valve, four-cylinder, turbopetrol
Power: 177 kW at 5750 rpm
Torque: 340 Nm at 2000 rpm
Zero to 100 km/h: 6.0 seconds
Maximum speed: 244 km/h
Real life fuel consumption: About 10.1 l/100 km
Tank: 60 litres
Boot: 350 litres
Warranty and maintenance: 3 years100 000 km

Kindly permit us an anthropomorphic moment: Giulietta is your T-shirt and sneakers girlfriend. She’s curvaceous, sexy, is faster than your mother deems appropriate and she snarls like a jungle cat when her passion’s unleashed. She’s also a little flawed, but perfection is molto boring, isn’t it?

And she shares a quirk with Model T Fords, but we’ll get to that later.

We covered its launch in February 2011 and drove a 1.4 MultiAir version a little later, so you can catch up with details by following those links. Let’s deal with what’s different about it, four years later.

Appearance-wise, the upper chrome bar on the grille has gone and the front fog lights now feature dark anthracite-coloured surrounds – both to draw             
one’s attention down lower -cheeky minx. Door handles, side mirrors and grille slats share the same dark anthracite finish.  

The interior was treated to a more modern music system with 5” touch screen and Uconnect featuring radio, CD and MP3 player, Bluetooth, USB and auxiliary, and voice command.

Then, to keep you more comfortable and firmly in place, the front seats were replaced with leather and suedette units providing better support, updated with lumbar adjustment for both, and the passenger  was given elevation control as well. To show they’re special, the chairs were treated to an Alfa Romeo weave on the suedette panels and given built-in head restraints with silvered inserts and “Giulietta” ID. But despite the car’s price tag, all seat adjustments are mechanical.

Finally and most important; the drive train. Alfa took the lighter, all-aluminium engine with its added four kilowatts (but unchanged torque) from the 4C and bolted on the same six-speed twin-clutch transmission (TCT). Apparently the added power comes from some subtle remapping of the control unit and that snarling exhaust system referred to earlier.

A further difference, apart from engine placement and drive orientation, is that Giulietta, being a civilian car, does not rate the “Race,” or fourth position, on the DNA selector. You don’t really miss it because this is primarily a family hatchback, with added muscle, rather than a track machine.

Although Fiat’s in-house TCT works brilliantly and we accept that it costs money to offer too many options, we missed the old six-speed manual ‘box. Sports cars - including Alfas - only really soar when coupled with the spiritual involvement of a good stickshifter. There was some reparation in having optional, manual override with the Tiptronic-style lever, in addition to pretentious steering wheel paddles, but it isn’t quite the same.

Despite that, this Giulietta was soul-balm for one tormented by too many econoboxes and boring cars in recent months. Its steering is nicely weighted without being heavy, its suspension is pleasantly firm, but not harsh despite 40-profile tyres, and it accelerates and corners like an Alfa should.

Because of the 300 kilogram-plus weight penalty, it isn’t as nimble or quick as the 4C, but it would be unfair to expect that. Fuel consumption wasn’t as good either. We averaged just over ten litres per hundred, but then we wouldn’t drive it like your sister’s little Panda.

About that snarl under load: It’s the emotive sound track of misspent youth; begging to be bottled and kept for personal use when it’s “a little after one and I need you now.”

But we digress. Despite its power, handling and gearbox, it’s primarily a family car; so let’s look at it as one.

Starting from the back, a touch on the big, circular logo releases the catch to allow the fairly heavy hatch to be lifted. It opens down to about 75 centimetres above ground level to expose a neat rectangular boot with a 25 cm lip. It’s equipped with four lashing rings, a light, a 12-volt socket, ambidextrous pull downs and a spacesaver spare. The seatbacks split 60:40, with the wider one featuring a load-through hatch that opens from both sides.

Rear accommodations are probably fine for average-sized people seated behind average-sized driver and front passenger, but we found it rather cramped and egress awkward. On the plus side, there’s a repeater vent for the air system, a fold-down armrest with oddments trays and two slide-out cup holders, a lighter with diminutive ash tray and a full set of belts and head restraints.

Moving forward, the centre island houses a small open tray, two cup holders, a further 12-volt socket and the shift lever. The USB and auxiliary plugs, parking sensor button and three-way DNA selector are placed ahead of it. The conventional parking brake is placed for left hand drive but is not unduly inconvenient. Oddly for a luxury car, there is no central armrest, but your advanced driving examiner would mark you down for taking your left hand off the wheel anyway.

Higher up the dash, the three air control dials evoke memories of when they would have been instruments for monitoring oil pressure, coolant temperature and voltage or ampere rate. The main dash display houses the 5” touch pad and neatly grouped buttons for associated controls; with central locking override, fog light buttons and tyre pressure monitoring off to the right. Other controls are grouped as usual on the column stalks and steering wheel boss, with the overwhelmingly black ambience relieved slightly by satin chrome inserts on seats, steering wheel and instruments.

Subjectively, the car felt very long and dark, with insufficient visibility outwards. That could be a result of the presently fashionable four-door-coupé styling and B and C pillars that appear wider than usual. As we said, she’s flawed, but we love her anyway.

The quirk shared with Model T Fords? You can have any standard colour, in a South African Alfa Romeo, as long as it’s “Nero” or solid black. All others cost extra. Most are just over R2000 but one, Pearlescent 8C Red, is priced at an eye-wetting R38 000.

Test unit from FCASA press fleet

See our Giulietta launch report here

See our review of the 2011 Giulietta 1.4 MultiAir here

Our report on the Alfa Romeo 4C is here

Optional wheels and sunroof shown

What We Do

This is a one-man show, which means that every car reviewed is given my personal evaluation and receives my own seat of the pants judgement - no second hand input here.
Every test car goes through real world driving; on city streets littered with potholes, speed bumps and rumble strips, on freeways and if its profile demands, dirt roads as well.

I do my best to include relevant information like real life fuel economy or a close mathematical calculation, boot size or luggage space, whether the space is both usable and accessible, whether life-sized people can use the back seat (where that applies), basic specs of the vehicle and performance figures if they are published. In the case of clearly identified launch reports, fuel figures are of necessity the laboratory numbers provided with the release material. If I ever place an article that doesn't cover most things, it's probably because I have dealt with that vehicle at least once already, so you will be able to find what you want in another report under the same manufacturer's heading in the menu on the left.

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 they can see I do actually exist.

Comments?
Want to ask a question, comment or just tell me you completely disagree with what I say? If you want advice or have a genuine concern, I will be happy to hear from you. All I ask is that you write something in the subject line so I know which vehicle you're talking about.