Alfa Romeo Giulia

FIRST DRIVE Veloce model aims to plug gap between standard car and QF

- Antony Ingram

Alfa Romeo Giulia Veloce

Price: £37,935 (RWD only)

Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo petrol

Power/torque: 276bhp/400Nm

Transmission: Eight-speed automatic, four-wheel drive

0-62mph: 5.2 seconds

Top speed: 149mph

Economy: 44.1mpg

CO2: 148g/km

ON SALE Now

CHANCES are you’ve already decided whether you want an Alfa Giulia or not. The brand’s first rear-wheel-drive saloon in decades is more than capable of going toeto-toe with its German rivals on the road, but it’s mightily appealing in the showroom, too, and that counts for a great deal.

Where it can’t quite match the Audi A4, BMW 3 Series or Mercedes C-Class is in the sheer range of models it offers. The Giulia Veloce goes some way to redressing that, doing its best to fill the enormous power gap between the 197bhp 2.0-litre petrol and the ballistic 503bhp Quadrifoglio V6.

Mechanically, the Veloce is much the same as the standard car, with an aluminium engine block, direct-injection technology and variable-geometry turbocharging. But the 2.0-litre petrol engine has been tweaked to liberate an extra 79bhp and 70Nm of torque, cutting the 0-62mph time by ninetenths of a second. That makes the Veloce as fast as a six-cylinder 321bhp BMW 340i, despite being severely down on power.