so a little while ago the boss calls up and says hey Aaron we need you to go
down to Circuit of the Americas in Austin Texas the United States only
Formula one track and we need you to drive a brand new Alfa Romeo I'm
thinking to myself cool that's really gonna be awesome maybe it'll be like the
the 4c sportscar that'll be cool or maybe the Alfa Romeo Giulia
Quadrifoglio the brutally fast sports sedan that I drove at Sonoma over a year
ago but no it's actually neither of those things it's this this is the 2018
stell vo Quadrifoglio and you know what I ain't mad not at all
ha so what is a Quadrifoglio what makes it
special well if you want the history of Quadrifoglio which means four-leaf
clover in italian you can look it up on our Giulia video the Giulia Quadrifoglio
where we explain to you the whole history behind this but in short it is
basically the highest performance trim level of any Alfa Romeo model if you see
this four-leaf clover badge on the fender you know that this thing is a
force to be reckoned with the Stovall Quadrifoglio brings a number of
high-performance parts to the party that you get on the Giulia Quadrifoglio you
get the 2.9 litre twin-turbocharged v6 engine it pumps out 505 horsepower and
443 pound-feet of torque you get the same high-performance 8-speed
transmission and you get something more that you don't get on the Giulia all
wheel drive its standard on the stove vo Quadrifoglio it's not even an option on
the Giulia Quadrifoglio but you don't get everything you don't get some of the
carbon fiber parts that you get on the Giulia and you don't get any of the
active aerodynamics either so let's be honest here
none of these are ever going to see a track probably in their life this is
probably the only time you're ever going to see the Alfa Romeo Stella Biel
Quadrifoglio driven in anger around a racetrack because let's face it that's
not really where SUVs are meant to be however now for a male makes this thing
so that you can take it on a track and it'll do some pretty extraordinary
things out of all the SUVs I've driven on tracks high-performance ones this has
to be for the best one yet you see the still vo itself is just a
taller Giulia sedan it's based off the same platform they call it the Giorgio
platform and the Georgio platform is outstanding
on a track its lights it's incredibly well-balanced it's super fast
and it makes noises like this
that noise comes from a 2.9 litre twin-turbocharged v6 engine it's making
505 horsepower 443 pound-feet of torque and it's made it up to an 8-speed
automatic transmission that when you put it in the race mode like it is now the
whole car behaves just beautifully yes it's heavier than the Giulia
Quadrifoglio buy upon almost 500 pounds and it's it's higher than a Juliet as
well I mean it's an SUV so you are sitting up a little ways but you know
what it's not that much it still has an incredible balance it's easy to drive
this thing around the track for really exciting speeds
and that noise is only Italian cars
a throttle response is outstanding even with the turbos there really isn't much
in the way of turbo lag because this transmission keeps things on boil really
quite well the steering and the Quadrifoglio model is fantastic it's got
a really super quick twelve point O to one ratio and it's just lightning fast
really direct excellent feedback the brakes are also extremely strong you've
got two different types standard are the regular steel frame bow brakes six
piston up front four piston in the back or optional are some carbon ceramic
brakes but frankly carbon ceramic brakes out on the street are always a little
problematic they always make a lot of noise unless you get them really hot
carbon ceramic brakes folks that's the noise they make so better to really
stick with the steel ones unless you plan on taking this thing to the track
every single weekend which it seems highly unlikely so what do we have here
well you've got a Juliet Quadrifoglio same powertrain
same transmission same suspension improvements a little bit tuned
differently because this is a heavier vehicle but what it adds is all-wheel
drive you can't get all-wheel drive in the Giulia Quadrifoglio so if you want
that additional traction which you're on a track like this somewhat offsets that
extra weight you have to get with Estelle vo the SUV that's the big
question is it a decent trade-off Estelle vo is 477 pounds heavier than
the Julian but it's got the extra traction of all-wheel drive now when
you're going around a track like this the thing is still heavier it still
pushes it's still under steers that's so easy to break the rear end loose but my
money if you do want to track an SUV and what are your choices this Porsche Macan
Jaguar F pace maybe the BMW x4
this thing I think performs better than any of them so I still don't know if a
track based high performance SUV really makes sense to me but if you're looking
for something that is fast and stylish and has that little element of Italian
exoticness well Alfa Romeos got something that you really might want to
look at the Alfa Romeo stell vo Quadrifoglio goes on sale soon and it's
going to start at just under $82,000 you can read more about it at cars.com
Mamamia that's a spicy meatball