WOW...!!! 2018 ALFA ROMEO STELVIO
Channel: CAR AND DRIVER
Date: 2018-01-15

the 2018 Stelvio SUV, which—as a high-riding utilitarian built atop the lovely, 10Best Cars–winning Giulia sedan—bolsters Alfa’s lineup in its return to the U.S. market. While the Stelvio also illustrates that adding utility to a performance brand’s DNA can sometimes dash our expectations, the end result is a refreshingly satisfying SUV to behold.

The existence of the Stelvio was initially a bit of a letdown, what with Alfa Romeo having teased us prior to its debut with the possibility of building a ground-hugging wagon version of the Giulia. Sexy, low slung, and theoretically imbued with the same delicate tactility that makes Alfa’s four-door one of our favorite new cars, a prospective Giulia wagon had us weak in the knees. But the reality is that a wagon would have been a nonstarter for a reemerging brand in today’s market. Against the shockwave of the industry’s crossover boom, the two-box Giulia didn’t stand a chance.Enter the Stelvio, which is designed to sop up the spills of suburban life with 19 cubic feet of cargo space behind its rear seats—57 cubes with the seats stowed—and a seating height about six inches loftier than the sedan’s. While we’ve yet to sample the 505-hp Stelvio Quadrifoglio—a version that currently holds the lap record for crossovers around the Nürburgring—we have now tested the mainstream, turbo-four model. The Stelvio’s mechanical makeup shadows that of the Giulia: a turbocharged 2.0-liter inline-four making 280 horsepower and 306 lb-ft of torque, backed by an eight-speed automatic transmission. Alfa’s all-wheel-drive system, which is $2000 extra on the Giulia, is standard on all Stelvios.

The crossover also benefits from the shared aluminum-intensive architecture, which helps make the 4037-pound Stelvio significantly lighter than many of its peers, including the latest Audi Q5 and BMW X3. That lightness didn’t translate to greater fuel economy in our testing, however. Our car’s 19-mpg observed figure was 3 mpg less than its EPA city estimate and toward the lower end of the compact-ute segment. And its 26-mpg performance on our 75-mph highway fuel-economy loop came up 2 mpg short of its highway rating. (For reference, the all-wheel-drive Giulia we previously tested weighed 377 pounds less and managed 23 and 32 mpg in the same measures.)The Stelvio fares better at the test track, where the heavier crossover actually was slightly quicker off the line than the non-Quadrifoglio Giulias we’ve tested: zero to 60 mph in a solid 5.4 seconds, with a quarter-mile pass of 14.1 seconds at 98 mph. Riding on optional 20-inch aluminum wheels (18s are standard, with 19s also available) wrapped with 255/45R-20 Continental CrossContact LX Sport all-season tires, our test example posted 0.84 g of grip on the skidpad and stopped from 70 mph in 176 feet, respectable returns for a two-ton SUV not wearing high-performance summer rubber. In the greater crossover hierarchy, the Stelvio doesn’t quite have the moves or the speed to match the more powerful, V-6–powered Jaguar F-Pace and Porsche Macan on similar tires, yet it can rout the Audi Q5 and the Mercedes-Benz GLC300 4Matic in nearly all dynamic measures.

Function and Fizz
Exuding a well-balanced comportment that instills confidence in its pilot, the Alfa is more responsive to inputs than most crossovers, especially with our test car’s top-level Ti Sport package ($4500 more than a base Stelvio and $2500 more than a midrange Ti), which consists of 20-inch wheels, a sport-tuned suspension, leather sport seats with adjustable side bolsters, column-mounted shift paddles, painted brake calipers, and black exterior accents. With lots of aluminum in the control-arm front and multilink rear suspensions, the Stelvio offers both pleasing compliance to road imperfections and astute body control when pushed hard. As in the Giulia, the turbo four emits a subdued growl and pulls strongly with minimal lag. The eight-speed gearbox makes the most of the 2.0-liter’s output with smooth, quick shifts and nicely sorted programming that doesn’t immediately race for top gear. Alfa Romeo’s brake-by-wire system also is much better realized in the Stelvio, with a firm, easy-to-modulate pedal that is significantly more linear in action than the Giulia’s.



 2018 ALFA ROMEO STELVIO


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