- Messages
- 404
- Reactions
- 0
They named this car the Stelvio. The Stelvio Pass on the Italian/Swiss border is one of Europe's highest and most visually memorable mountain roads. In winter it's slippery; at any time, it's a cascade of hairpin corners. It's a good name for an AWD vehicle with sporty pretensions. Except if you ever drive the Stelvio, you'll likely be stuck behind a crawling tourist bus. But let's not allow dull reality to obscure Alfa Romeo's extravagant sense of romance.
We won't make a fuss that Alfa Romeo has just started with SUVs. Launching SUVs is just what you do if you're a premium sports company that wants to stay in business. (Anyhow, trivia fans, it isn't quite Alfa's first utility vehicle. There was a Willys-Jeep-like scout car known as the Matta in the early 1950s.)
More interesting is that Alfa Romeo has just started making good cars of any kind. Before World War II Alfa was the pinnacle of both racing and luxury, the equivalent of today's Ferrari and Rolls-Royce combined. But it was a long slide down, and since the 1990s its cars have been ridiculously patchy. You really don't need to feel deprived that it has absented itself from the U.S. during those years.
Now we have the Giulia, and we know how good that is. Was it a freak, or can Alfa repeat the trick and build a range of strong players? Stelvio and Giulia sing off the same song sheet, using the architecture named Giorgio, unrelated to anything from Maserati or anywhere else in FCA.
The body is rich in high-strength steels. Bar the roof, the whole skin and the suspension are aluminum. The prop shaft is carbon fiber no less. The suspension is a control-arm setup at the front, with multiple links abaft.
I'm at Alfa's factory under Monte Cassino near Naples, Italy. It's not actually a new site, but it has been rebuilt and is totally new inside. I've just had a tour, and it sure looks like a place capable of turning out high-quality cars. A Stelvio is outside, and I itch to jump in and drive. Except I bump into Alfa's chief engineer, ex-Ferrari genius Roberto Fedeli, and ask about his aims for the Stelvio.
It's supposed to feel like a car not an SUV. (Indeed there was supposed to be a Giulia wagon, but they cancelled it when they realized how carlike the Stelvio was turning out.) Critically, the height of the seating position relative to the roll axis is the same in the Stelvio as the Giulia.
Read more on Motor Trend.