What's the difference?
Alfa Romeo. A brand with more re-boots than success stories. Yet one which driving enthusiasts the world over can’t seem to shake the allure of.
Of course, these are not cars for just everyone. Most mainstream buyers are scared away by what I like to call the three Rs. Rust. Reliability. Resale.
Alfa’s tumultuous (and often overstated) past is one it has trouble putting behind it. Reputations are hard earned and easily lost, and besides, the majority of the voting public aspire to own something German, which they see a lot more of on the road.
It doesn’t help that Alfa also dragged its feet on committing to a five-year warranty in Australia (in early 2022), hardly a statement of confidence in its product.
You’re probably wondering by now why anyone would buy one, and why it’s the car which most enthusiasts wish they were brave enough to own.
Well the Giulia is the Alfa Romeo. The low-slung, sporty, sexy car which a few of us out there still use as a reference-point for how to make a sedan in 2023 good-looking, and how to make one drive like it has heart.
The brand can throw all the SUVs at us it wants, but for those who see Alfa Romeo for the brand it should be, this car is it.
Parting sorrow, perhaps, the version we’re looking at for this review may be one of the last - under its new Stellantis management, Alfa has said it will leave this fantastic, promising Giorgio platform behind it in a move to be more electrified.
Travel with me, dear reader, as we celebrate a car which is the culmination of Alfa’s past, at a moment before it steps into the future.
The icon is electric. Well, kind of.
This is the new Porsche 911 Carrera GTS, which ushers in a facelift for the brand’s most famous model — and it’s one that introduces a pretty major change.
That faint whistling you hear is most likely the distant wails of the Porsche purists, because this new 911 is now a hybrid.
Yes, the Carrera GTS features Porsche’s clever T-Hybrid engine, which is the brand’s take on electrifying the world’s most famous sports car.
It’s faster than the model it replaces, but it also fundamentally alters the formula that has made the 911 the world’s most iconic sports car.
The question is, does it alter it for the better?
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.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. The t-hybrid might be an entirely new propulsion system for the 911, but the net result is unchanged – power, poise and performance on tap.
Note: CarsGuide attended this event as a guest of the manufacturer, with travel, accommodation and meals provided.
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.
This facelift debuts a revolutionary exterior design that has completely reshaped the 911.
Just kidding. If it ain’t broke and all that. The front air vents and exhaust have changed, the former now an active intake system that deploys via vertical flaps, but elsewhere it’s largely evolution over revolution.
Instead, Porsche has focused most of the updates in then cabin. In here, you’ll find a new digital instrument panel, they’ve changed some of the levers and the steering wheel.
In true Porsche fashion, though, this new 911 mimics the older versions in that it's one of the more intuitive cabins you’ll ever sit in. Everything feels as though it’s exactly where it should be, and all feels entirely centred on the driver.
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.
This probably falls under the ‘next question, please’ umbrella, given that, while the Porsche 911 is known for a lot of things, vast acres of space with loads of practicality perks just ain’t a part of its portfolio.
The new 911 measures a not-insubstantial 4533mm in length, 1852mm width and around 1294mm in height, and it rides on a 2450mm wheelbase. Luggage space is a paltry 135 litres under the bonnet, plus whatever else you can fit in your pockets.
There’s seating for four, should you not like the people you’re squeezing back there very much, but really the 911 is best enjoyed as a two-seat proposition – which is why you can also delete the backseat, should you wish.
It also weighs a minimum 1595kg, or up to 1745kg, but Porsche says the hybrid tech only adds about 50kg to the total kerb weight.
The Giulia we’re looking at for this review is the mid-spec Veloce, which costs $74,950 before on-road costs, sitting above the base Ti ($68,450) and below the top-spec Quadrifoglio ($153,700).
Natural rivals from Germany include the Audi A4 45 TFSI ($77,869), BMW 320i M Sport ($80,200) and Mercedes-Benz C200 ($89,900) all of which suddenly make the attractive Alfa look like a not-half-bad deal.
But then there’s always the Genesis G70 (from $63,000 in equivalent turbo 2.0L form) to bring the value equation back to reality.
Standard stuff at this grade includes 19-inch alloys, an 8.8-inch multimedia touchscreen and a 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster (new for the 2024 model year), dark contrast exterior highlights, leather seat trim with heated front seats and steering wheel, aluminium interior detailing and shift paddles with extended leather trim on the dash, updated LED headlights and DRLs, dual-zone climate, push-start ignition and keyless entry, tinted rear windows, and a 14-speaker Harman Kardon audio system.
Performance-wise, the Veloce also scores a limited-slip rear differential to match its punchy engine.
The tech feels a bit old, and the interior has a dated ambiance to it compared to the more open and digitised spaces of its rivals, but there’s something to be said for how organic the Alfa feels. More on this later.
Yikes. Perhaps I wasn’t paying close enough attention, because the Porsche 911 range now suddenly seems very expensive.
In fact, it inspired some research. Some 10 years ago, in 2015, the Porsche 911 range kicked off at around $208,000. Today, though, you’re looking at more like $280,500 for the entry-level 911, and if you want this bahn-storming Carrera GTS, you’re looking at more like, deep breath, $381,200, before on-road costs.
If you want four-wheel drive, a cabriolet roof, or both, the price climbs from there, with the GTS range topping out with the Carrera 4 GTS Cabriolet listing at $437,900.
Now in Germany’s defence, the Porsche has gotten progressively faster and more powerful over the years, and that’s true again with the T-Hybrid version, but we’ll come back to the tech stuff in a second.
Outside, it rides on staggered alloys (21 inch at the rear, 20 inch at the front), and there are standard matrix LED headlights, vertical-mounted active cooling flaps, and you can have it as a hard top, a Targa roof or as a full Cabriolet.
The biggest updates (apart from the driving stuff, of course, occur in the cabin, where the 911 has now push-button start, and introduces a new digital dashboard, which defaults as a digital version of the old analogue setup. The screen is 12.6 inches, and there’s a second 10.9-inch screen in the centre cabin which does your phone streaming.
There’s also a BOSE Surround Sound System, 14-way adjustable comfort seats, and digital radio.
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.
A new (or at least, massively altered) 3.6-litre petrol engine has been developed for this T-Hybrid, which combines with two electric motors to produce a total 398kW and 610Nm. It’s only available with Porsche’s very good eight-speed Porsche Doppelkupplung (PDK) automatic, largely because the brand admits it would be… well… unpleasant to drive as a manual.
Now, there is lots of magic at work here, and I don’t want to bore you, but the Porsche setup sees a lightweight 1.9kWh battery placed basically in the middle of the front axle, and a 12-volt battery now behind the front seat. Then, a tiny e-motor lives as part of the gearbox (it’s just 55mm long) and delivers up to 150Nm at low speeds to supplement the petrol engine.
It’s joined by what Porsche calls an “electric exhaust gas turbocharger”, which essentially removes the spooling time from the turbo, delivering instant power.
The aim of the game here is excitement, not efficiency, and the launch-control-aided spring to 100km/h takes just 3.0 seconds. And it somehow feels, and sounds, faster.
The latter being important, with Porsche aware that if the new powertrain didn’t sound good, "nobody would like it”.
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.
Porsche in Australia is yet to lock in local fuel use for the Carrera GTS T-Hybrid, but international testing has it at 10.5-10.7L/100km, C02 emissions of between 239-244g/km.
Those aren’t exactly Toyota Prius numbers. But again, that was never Porsche’s intention. The electric power on offer here is intended to improve acceleration, not fuel use.
It’s fitted with a 63-litre fuel tank, which should deliver a driving range of around 600km per tank.
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.
Porsche did just about the Porschiest thing to ever Porsche in launching the 911 Carrera GTS T-Hybrid, in that we piled into cars in Melbourne, drove the many, many hours (well, it feels that long, at least) to the Phillip Island race circuit, beat the hell out of the cars on track and on the drag strip for several hours, then trundled back out on the road and drove them back to Melbourne.
The subliminal messaging here is pretty clear. This new 911 might have a new powertrain, but it can still deliver the road-track-road experience without breaking a sweat — or, more importantly, without breaking any expensive bits.
So let’s do this in order, shall we? On the road, this new 911 is every bit as sweet as it has ever been. Comfortable, quiet enough when you want it to be, and — save some road noise from those big wheels – quiet enough to let you forget you're driving something with one of Peter Dutton’s nuclear reactors hidden beneath its svelte metal work.
Mind you, that T-Hybrid powertrain will happily remind you of its presence every time you press the accelerator in anger, the exhaust erupting into life and the 911 genuinely rocketing into the future, but stay gentle with your inputs and this hybrid 911 is a genuinely comfortable, genuinely liveable daily driver.
Its split personality appears when you rumble out onto a race track though, where you quickly discover the electrified, and electrifying, Porsche is properly, properly rapid, both in a straight line or around Phillip Island’s fast and flowing circuit.
It’s so rapid, in fact, that it feels most closely related to a performance EV, like the Taycan. Of course it is louder and more engaging, but that’s the best way I can think of to describe the instant power on offer here. There’s no ICE-like lags or lumps in the way that 398kW and 610Nm finds its way to the tyres and into the tarmac. Instead it’s just this constant, savage flow of power that never seems to let up.
Porsche says this new powertrain is about 50kg heavier, but you’d need to be plugged into the race track like its the Matrix to ever feel it, with the T-Hybrid feeling lithe, grippy and athletic, aided by near-perfect steering, the best automatic gearbox in existence, and exactly zero roll through the body. In fact, the only thing that really moves when cornering hard in this new 911 is the driver, and I genuinely got out after several laps with a sore neck from trying to stay vertical.
Downsides? Well, it’s faster in a straight line (it will be some 7.0m further down the road after 2.5sec when compared to the older GTS) and faster around corners (8.7sec faster around the Nurburgring than its predecessor), but there’s something delightfully analogue about the outgoing car, which also manages to feel more aggressive under heavy acceleration, too, owing to the little ebbs and flows of power, and after driving both back-to-back, I still can’t decide which one I like more.
The same safety equipment suite is standard on every Giulia variant.
Advanced active gear includes auto emergency braking, lane keep tech, blind-spot monitoring with rear cross-traffic alert, driver attention alert, and adaptive cruise control.
It also scores front and rear parking sensors, and a reversing camera with guidelines.
The Giulia’s maximum five-star ANCAP safety rating expired at the end of last year, as it was originally rated back in 2016. The facelifted model is ‘unrated’ relative to ANCAP’s current standards.
This 911 arrives without an avalanche of active safety kit, but the key stuff is covered. There are airbags up front for the driver and passenger, side impact protection including thorax and curtain airbags, auto emergency braking (AEB) with pedestrian detection, a surround-view camera with parking lines, lane change assist, lane keeping assist, adaptive cruise control and a driver fatigue monitor.
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.
The 911 Carrera GTS is covered by a pretty underwhelming three-year, unlimited-kilometre warranty, with servicing required every 12 months or 15,000kms. We don’t have the hybrid service pricing yet, but as guide, the last 911 split the services into minor and major, and charged either $785 or $1285 for each.