Alfa Romeo Giulia Veloce Fast Fleet test – living with the sharp Italian saloon

Alfa Romeo has a long record of designing handsome mid-range saloons, and the current Giulia is the Italian firm on great form. The V6 models add a sublime soundtrack and ludicrous performance, but I’ve always wondered if the much more affordable and economical 2-litre has enough character and pace to match the looks, so I jumped at the chance to run this Veloce version for its first couple of months on the evo Fast Fleet.

It carries off solid red with ease and sits well on some of the most handsome alloys ever designed. I reckon they’re worth the £4500 upgrade from the base Sprint model alone, but as well as those fabulous 19-inch ‘petal’ alloys (the Sprint has dull 18s) you also get leather-trimmed, electrically adjusted sports seats. The mechanicals remain the same as for the Sprint, so a 2-litre turbo ‘four’ with 276bhp, which isn’t a huge output, but it does drive the rear axle, which is equipped with a limited-slip diff.

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The Giulia looks good from the inside too, finished mostly in black with silver metal highlights, and has just the right balance of hard switches and infotainment-based functionality. There’s a choice of instruments, the TFT screen offering a minimalistic display but also a set of traditional-looking dials, the typeface and design of which remind me very much of the original Mini’s. I like it, particularly as it features a range display that looks like a mechanical odometer but which changes its prediction with a roll of the tumblers like a miniature one-armed bandit.

The leather seats are pleasingly snug and offer bolster-width and upper and lower lumbar adjustment. You sit low, giving a hint of touring car, and the chassis helps, feeling intrinsically agile, a benefit of the 50:50 weight distribution. Less engagingly, an eight-speed auto is the only gearbox, while the in-line four seems to have traded character for refinement. It has a low red line of 5500rpm but, when you do ask it to deliver, the car snaps pleasingly to attention, the gearbox quick and the performance instant, strong and linear.

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The ride is a fair blend of comfort and control, with a hint of low-speed abruptness and a touch of unchecked heave, while the steering and the front end feel keen and precise. The brakes… hmm, the brakes. Probably the least well sorted of the controls. Initially, going for light stops I was getting too much response and I now step in with a delicate touch, as though the pedal is an egg.

There’s a ‘DNA’ drive-mode rotary switch to the right of the HMI controller and I hadn’t felt the need to use it until I was heading across country from Oswestry to Ffestiniog for last month’s shoot on the 458 Speciale. For daily driving, N for natural is nicely judged. For a keener pace, it turns out D for dynamic is also very well judged. The damping is fixed but the gearbox locks out eighth and seems to be in the right gear all the time without being over-keen as many of these modes are, meaning you rarely need to intervene with the paddles. Even better, the extra weight to the steering makes the front more positive again. It was a very enjoyable blat, though I looked in vain for the off button for the traction/stability control.

So far, the Giulia has proved as good to drive as it is to look at, and feels solid too. The only mild irritations are a rattle from the instrument binnacle that seems to be getting gradually worse, and one of the electric seat buttons has gone missing, leaving the metal tab beneath exposed. Other than that, it’s been a very positive first month. And I always steal a glance back after I’ve parked it, which has to be a good sign.

This story was first featured in evo issue 316.