ALFA ROMEO STELVIO Q

Fresh and revitalised or too little, too late?

- ANDY ENRIGHT

ENGINE 2891cc V6, DOHC, 24v twin-turbo

POWER 375kW @ 6500rpm

TORQUE 600Nm @ 2500-5000rpm

0-100KM/H 3.8sec

WEIGHT 1830kg • PRICE $146,900

LIKE: Howling V6; sleek aesthetics; improved infotainment and materials

DISLIKE: Neurotic controls; unresolved driver aids; lurching auto handbrake

IT SHOULDN’T MATTER, but it does. Like people, cars only get one chance to create a favourable first impression and, if you’re asking the thick end of $150K for one, they’ve got a high bar to clear. Alfa Romeo’s Stelvio Q was a car with many admirable qualities, but sit inside for a couple of minutes and your instant take away from it was that the engine and underpinnings must be costing you a pretty penny because the budget certainly never went on the interior.

That first handshake with the Stelvio Q was always tinged with disappointment. It left you with the nagging suspicion that here was a $60K vehicle wearing a lot of dress-up but never avoiding some fairly proletarian roots. Cheap interior plastics, an infotainment system that might have had a $20K Kia preparing its excuses and a fairly rudimentary skim of electronic safety systems again left you figuring that the Stelvio needed to drive really well in order to muscle its way into contention.