It's a great and abiding automotive mystery that here in Mzansi, Alfa Romeo sold just two Giulias last month. Nationally.
I've thought and thought about this, and wonder if perhaps it's because many still associate Alfas with disintegration, dysfunction, rust, and unreliability. I'm not really sure.
But either way it's a travesty. I say this having delighted in the Giulia when it was launched in Mzansi last year – and that included spending time with the halo Quadrifoglio Verde with its 375kW/600Nm.
Now I've just rather belatedly spent a week a Giulia 2.0T Base. I can assure you that Alfa's D-segment offering is a genuine rival to players from the Teutonic triumvirate in this segment.
And yes. It brims with brio, Italian exuberance, and that rather indefinable quality called character. Except here “character” isn't shorthand for “only fun when it works...which it doesn't often.”
In the “What Car” 2018 reliability survey over in the UK, the Giulia beat its German competition, and indeed the car I spent a week with proved tight, taught, polished and poised.
Of course, it's almost a cliché for car writers to wax lyrical about Alfas, but I need to again stress that this a real-world, consummately capable car. But it just somehow feels oh-so Italian, and even when tooling through urban environments in the tester it took little imagination to transport to a serpentine road along the Amalfi coast or perhaps Lake Como.
On a more corporeal note, the Base or entry-level Giulia I spent time with came with niceties such as 16-inch alloys, dual-zone climate control, stop/start technology, cruise control. All those things you'd expect at basic executive level, while a five-star NCAP rating is also part of the deal.
Perhaps it could have done with paddle shifts. This is a car you want to drive with a little gusto here and there, especially with its new DNA selector which lets you switch between Dynamic, Natural, and Advanced Efficiency modes.
But for that you'd need to move one step up and pay another 70k or so for the Super version, which gets those paddles plus twin exhausts, 17-inch alloys, adaptive cruise control, and a few other things.
Standard even on the Base though are six airbags, a 6.5-inch infotainment system, Lane Departure Warning (LDW), Forward Collision Warning (FCW), and other useful abbreviations. Nerd alert: they're only acronyms when they actually form a word, such as Cosatu or Nato.
Okay, let’s wrap this up
Even without all these
nice-to-haves, the Giulia is wonderful testament to the fact that you
can have Latino flair mated to real-world reliability and useability.
Or in stark and reassuring contrast to what your parents possibly told you, you can indeed have your cake and eat it.
Alfa Romeo Giulia 2.0T Base Specs:
Price | R616,900.00 |
Engine | 2.0-litre, four-cylinder turbopetrol |
Transmission | Eight-speed automatic |
Power | 147kW |
Torque | 330Nm |
0-100kph | 6.6 seconds |
Top Speed | 235kph |
Average Fuel Consumption | 6l/100km |
CO2 Emissions | 138g/km |