After decades of corporate maltreatment of truly epic proportions, and corresponding desperation for all of us car lovers with a faiblesse for the once so proud Italian brand, it truly warms the heart being able to write that it looks like Alfa Romeo maybe, just maybe, is on the way back. Sure, there was the 4C a few years ago, a car that as so many Alfas does the trick design-wise but was no real match for the usual suspects in the two-seat sport car class. But then last year the new Giulia followed, initially in the most powerful Quadrifoglio version, and it went on not only to do well in tests against the very best in the class, but actually to win a number of them. And when an Alfa without excuses beats a BMW M3 Competition Pack in a recent Head to Head you can see here, then it’s time to pay attention.

The new Giulia is rear-wheel drive (yes!!!) and is the first Alfa to be so since the Alfa 75 was discontinued in 1992 (which at least in my book was the last great driver’s Alfa). It has a perfect 50/50 front-rear balance and, as it seems a truly great chassis with fantastic handling. The engine is a new 2.9 lire biturbo V6 with 510 hp and 600 Nm torque, said to have been derived from the Ferrari California by Ferrari engineers. How much truth there is to that we will never know, but it clearly does the job very well indeed. Design-wise it’s… nice, but to me a bit too M3-like and quite far from the prettiest Alfa there has been. So it would seem that we have an Alfa that shines more on the inside than on the outside – strange world indeed!

Enough said – watch the video (if you didn’t click above you can do so here) and when you do so, remember that this is a car costing around EUR 80-90.000 new, at least EUR 20.000 less than an M3 with Competition Package – la vita è bella!