Alfa Romeo Giulia vs Lotus Emira

What's the difference?

The Giulia is a love letter to the increasingly lost art of the sporty executive sedan. As refined as it is beautiful and oh-so elegant to drive, it’s a reminder of why we always love Alfa Romeo, even when the odds are against it.

Emotional cars like this are hard to come by and they will soon be gone, replaced by something new. The future is not necessarily worse, but it will be different, so if a sporty European sedan with a combustion engine is calling out to you don’t miss your opportunity to drive the Giulia while it still exists in this form.

If this really is the final petrol-powered Lotus sports car then it’s a sad day for fans of the brand and its history. But it’s also worthy of celebration because they have made a car that is genuinely impressive.

It may not be perfect, and it will have to fight hard to lure buyers away from Porsche, BMW and co. but for anyone who enjoys a dynamic, engaging and incredibly fun sports car the Emira should be on your short-list.

Alternatively, if you’ve always dreamed of buying a traditional Lotus sports car and haven’t got around to it until now, this is your last chance so don’t wait too long.

Like any good Alfa Romeo should be, the Giulia is a work of art. It’s sleek, sharp, and immaculately proportioned.

This most recent update has artfully refined a formula too good-looking to mess with. The increasingly dorky headlamps from the previous car have been swapped out for a more contemporary all-LED set, with a three-bar DRL pattern.

The grille has also been tweaked for this update for a more modern style, and the Veloce is now graced with the iconic and more aggressive sport two-tone alloy wheels in the traditional five-hole 'tele-dial' style.

It’s effortlessly attractive, and instantly recognisable as an Alfa on the road. I can’t think of a better way to stand out in today’s executive sedan landscape.

The interior has received less of an upgrade for the 2024 model year, with the same core parts. The major change is the old-school analogue instrument cluster being swapped out for a slick 12.3-inch digital unit.

The puzzling thing about this is the 8.8-inch central multimedia screen hasn’t been upgraded in-kind, making a strange contrast between the sharp and fast digital instruments, and the laggy and dull multimedia panel.

At least it effortlessly sits behind the curvaceous design of the dash as to not interrupt a good shape.

There are of course plenty of other touches which I love. The leather seats look and feel the part, as do the real metal paddle shifters which float behind the simple yet refined and sporty steering wheel.

The push-to-start button on the wheel is reminiscent of other Italian sports machines, while the tasteful smattering of leather, gloss plastic, and textured surfaces keep the premium feel on-track.

Some areas I’m not so keen about: Some of the interior plastics, particularly for buttons and toggles, feel cheaper than they should, and the door cards are oddly basic considering how much attention has been given to every other part of this car’s look and feel.

As mentioned earlier, the Emira is meant to be a bridge between Lotus’ past and its future - combining elements of its previous sports cars while also laying the visual tone for future models.

The design does a good job of that, because there’s clearly a link to the Exige and Evora of the recent past, but it also takes heavy influence from the limited-run Evija hypercar.

In turn, this new design language will spread out across the all-new electric models, including the Eletre SUV and Emeya sports sedan.

The styling does a good job of making the Emira look and feel like a premium sports car, without the need for any flashy wings or similar. It’s a simple, compact but stylish sports car.

This trend carries over to the cabin, with the more premium finish with the carpets, leather and good quality switchgear, as well as the digital instrument display and 10.2-inch multimedia touchscreen. Gone are the days of a Lotus having a minimalist, exposed aluminium interior with only the bare necessities. This is a proper premium sports car.

The Giulia is an old-school low-slung sports sedan. Many will prefer the SUV sensibilities of the Stelvio, with its bigger hatch-opening boot, and its higher ride height can better accommodate less mobile passengers, and makes it easier to fit child seats and the like.

For those willing to trade those things away for a superior drive experience, the Giulia is still solid to live with every day, but has a few drawbacks.

For example, those strangely basic door cards offer only a tiny map pocket with a nook I’d hardly describe as a bottle holder.

The centre console offers two larger bottle holders with variable edges, but there’s also not much else in the way of storage in the cabin aside from a smaller-than-average glove box and armrest console box.

The big win for me is the physical dial set and shortcut buttons for all the key climate functions, making it easy to operate while you’re concentrating on driving.

At least the seats are well bolstered, and front passengers are treated to plenty of adjustability. Visibility is okay, and it was easy for me to find a comfortable driving position at 182cm tall.

The rear seat is a similar story. It’s tighter, and you have to duck down below the roofline to get into it.

Once inside, I was pleasantly surprised to find enough room for my knees and somewhere for my feet to slide behind my own driving position, although the centre position is all but useless thanks to an enormous raise for the driveshaft.

Headroom is passable, but you wouldn’t want to be much taller than me. 

There are, again, tiny bottle holders in the doors, and a further two in the drop-down armrest. Rear seat passengers get dual adjustable air vents on the back of the centre console, one USB 2.0 outlet, and elastic nets on the backs of the front seats.

The boot measures 480 litres which is up there with a lot of mid-size SUVs, but because it’s a sedan, access is more limited, and it won’t accommodate as many awkwardly-shaped objects.

While it’s a more luxurious Lotus, it remains a compact and impractical sports car - and that’s very much on brand. In terms of storage inside the cabin, there are two cupholders and a small lidded console box, but the size of the cabin means everything is quite narrow and feels a little tight for space.

There is a decent sized, although not very deep, shelf behind the seats, so you can put smaller, softer items there and hope they don’t slide around too much.

In terms of actual luggage space, there isn’t much. There’s a small boot behind the engine, and while deep, it’s pretty narrow so you’ll only get soft bags in there if you plan on taking your Emira on a road trip.

In terms of size and price, the Emira lines up almost directly against the Porsche 718 Cayman, which is a formidable adversary, but also the likes of the BMW M4. Notably, it’s significantly cheaper than anything offered by the likes of Ferrari, Maserati and McLaren.

The MY24 Emira range begins at $155,900, before on-road costs, for the entry-level model but stretches up to just over $206,000 for the i4 First Edition we’re driving here.

The Emira has been designed as a more premium and luxurious sports car compared to the stripped down and basic models of the recent past, such as the Elise and Exige, so it gets a range of items not previously seen on many Lotus models - such as carpeted floors and the choice of either Nappa leather or Alcantara trim.

Also included are LED headlights, climate control, keyless ignition, cruise control, rear parking sensors, a premium sound system and a 12.3-inch digital dashboard.

It's worth noting the MY25 Emira line-up was detailed earlier this month. You can read all about it, including pricing and specification, here.

The Veloce might not pack a Ferrari-derived six-cylinder engine like the Quadrofoglio, but its smaller 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbocharged petrol engine hardly wants for power.

Packing 206kW/400Nm it outpunches six cylinders of old easily, and is still capable of sprinting to 100km/h in a hot-hatch baiting 5.7 seconds to a Vmax of 240km/h.

It even sounds fantastic, as it flies up the rev-range living up to every bit of the Alfa promise. Peak power arrives at 5250rpm, but peak torque hits at 2250rpm.

Smooth shifts are provided courtesy of an eight-speed traditional torque converter automatic transmission.

The MY24 Emria first arrived in Australia with the same Toyota-built 3.5-litre V6 engine Lotus had used in recent years in the likes of the Exige and Evora. However, this new AMG-built four-cylinder provides a fresh choice.

Importantly, while built by Mercedes-AMG, the tuning and calibration is unique to Lotus (but we’ll discuss that in detail later).

That means the 2.0-litre unit is tuned to make 268kW/430Nm, which is less potent than AMG offers in its 310kW/500Nm A45 hot hatch, although a more potent version of the four-pot Emira has been confirmed for MY25.

The engine is paired with an eight-speed dual-clutch auto transmission, which you can either leave in automatic mode or change gear manually using the F1-style paddles on the steering wheel.

The 2.0L turbocharged engine has an official combined cycle fuel consumption figure of just 6.1L/100km, although I saw 9.0L/100km in my time with it.

I’ll admit it was being enthusiastically driven, and treated to lots of urban commuting.

The Giulia has a 58-litre fuel tank and requires mid-shelf 95 RON premium unleaded fuel. Its approximate range on a full tank at the official consumption is 951km.

Given the Emira is a sports car, the four-cylinder turbo is tuned for performance over economy and that’s reflected in an 10.1L/100km return on the combined (urban/extra-urban) cycle. That’s not too bad for a sports car, but is relatively thirsty given the engine capacity and the overall size of the car.

The Emira is equipped with a 60-litre fuel tank, so it has a driving range of approximately 594km.

Put simply: The Giulia is a celebration of Alfa Romeo. Yes. Even with a humble 2.0-litre turbocharged engine and an automatic transmission, this is a deeply emotional car. A riveting experience from behind the wheel.

Fly round corners, your eyes wide, exclaiming ‘magnifico!’ as the Giulia gracefully leans in, the rear LSD, sporty tyres, and wonderfully tight steering working together in harmony as you eke out just a smidge of tyre roar.

Laugh out loud to yourself, as you plant the accelerator, hear the muted rumble of the surprisingly angry little engine, and feel the turbocharger kick in half a second later as you power out.

‘Eccezionale!’ You’ll think, as you feel the click of the immensely satisfying metal paddle-shifters, and the transmission responds in-kind, the engine roaring up the revolutions with enthusiasm.

Sure, the Veloce grade is not as raw, or as wild, or near as fast as the top-grade Quadrofoglio, but all of the exciting spirit of  that car is still here, and at a little over half the price, too. The Veloce is an absolute delight to drive.

It has such poise, makes such a fine sound, and does it all so gracefully. This is how you make a car feel as one with the driver.

Even the ride is deeply impressive. It’s not too harsh or noisy, while gifting the chassis just the right amount of lean in the corners and allowing enough play for it to remain controlled over bumps.

Not only does it work well when you’re driving as it's clearly intended to be driven, but around town it’s quiet and refined inside, living up to the promise of a luxury sedan.

The seats and bolstering are great, the visibility isn’t too bad, and while I’ll complain about the slightly laggy software on the multimedia screen, the digital dash is responsive and the physical climate controls are welcome.

It’s not all perfect. If it were, I think it might cease to be an Alfa Romeo and start sprouting BMW badges.

For example, our test car, with less than 2000km on the odometer, had various inconsistent rattles emanating from the plastic garnish around the digital dash, and somewhere behind the back seat.

Regardless, driving this car has made me a little sad Alfa will be putting this wonderful platform behind it in pursuit of more electrified goals.

I can only hope wherever the Giulia nameplate goes next, it retains the spirit of this version.

Just to be clear right up front, the score for this section is heavily biased towards the car's dynamic attributes, because frankly the Emira can be hard to live with at times.

At urban speeds the powertrain feels like a dog straining at its leash, which can result in some awkward moments.

For example, there were multiple instances where the gearbox refused to change out of second gear when exiting a roundabout, letting the engine rev quite hard and likely annoying my neighbours.

Some of the gear changes can be clunky too, not slotting as sweetly as they should on a sports car costing in excess of $200K.

However, you forget all that when you get the Emira onto a stretch of twisty, winding open road (preferably smooth tarmac) and move it from the 'Tour' to 'Sports' mode. The car comes alive, revving hard, shifting with precision and feeling like a puppy running through a field in pure ecstasy.

Like the great cars to come before it from Lotus, the Emira is in its element carving through corners. The steering is incredibly accurate, direct and responsive - as good as any sports car I’ve driven in recent memory. The chassis responds to those inputs with immediacy, too, feeling nimble, agile and engaging.

This is Lotus at its best.

Sports cars are not typically beacons of safety, not that they’re dangerous but the priority is speed, not complex and often weighty safety technology. It’s part of the reason these types of cars are rarely crash tested by the authorities, as is the case of the Emira.

But this more modern and luxury focused Lotus comes with a raft of safety items including adaptive cruise control, an anti-collision system (Lotus-speak for AEB), fatigue alert, road sign information, a vehicle speed limiter, lane departure warning, rear cross-traffic alert and lane change assist.

Alfa finally updated its warranty to a more industry-standard five-years and unlimited kilometres in 2022.

Service intervals occur at 12 monthly or 15,000km intervals for the 2.0-litre turbocharged variants. Pricing was not available for the model year 2024 version yet in the brand’s online calculator, but to give you an idea for the pre-facelift version, pricing came in between $345 and $1065 per visit, averaging $573 per year for the first five years of ownership. Not cheap, but not as expensive to run as you might expect.

One thing you might want to keep in mind is depreciation. Boring, I know, but even late model examples of the Giulia and Stelvio have been hit particularly hard by the depreciation stick according to residual values we searched up on Autotrader.

For reference, the Genesis G70 and BMW 3 Series have both fared much better in equivalent 2.0-litre turbo forms.

Lotus Australia offers a three year warranty, which is in line with Porsche's cover, so that’s competitive in the sports car market. 

However, the brand does not offer capped price servicing, so you’ll need to discuss with your local dealer how much regular maintenance will cost you. The service intervals are every 12 months/15,000km.