Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio feels better than the M3

BMW’s M3 feels wonky and heavy in comparison to this smooth, fast Alfa. Did I just write that?

IT'S FLAWED. IT'S FAST. IT'S HEAPS OF FUN

I've waited nearly three decades for this car. The Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio Verde. An Alfa Romeo that isn't just a rebadged Fiat. An Alfa Romeo that has rear-wheel drive and serious power.

An Alfa you'd actually want to buy.

Or would you? Well, for the purposes of this test I'm going to set aside my love of Alfas, which is profound. It's so profound that I even manage to love the 4C, a car so riddled with faults it should have been called the San Andreas. Here, however, there will be no misty-eyed ramblings about Dustin Hoffman, or the sublime engine note of the GTV6.

No. I'm going to review the Giulia Quadrifoglio (four-leaf clover) in the same way as I'd review a BMW or a Mercedes. I'm going to review it simply as a car. A tool. A thing.

We'll start with its faults. And that brings us directly to the driver's door, which is either too small or in the wrong place. I can't work out which but whatever, getting out is like getting out of a postbox. The only way you can do it with dignity is by pushing the steering wheel as far forward as it will go. Which brings us to the steering wheel; it's festooned with buttons that aren't lit at night. So when you want to adjust the stereo volume, as often as not you engage the cruise control. Which you then can't turn off without reaching for your phone and turning on the torch feature. By which time you'll have run out of petrol. It's not a thirsty car, especially, but it has a 58-litre tank.

And 58 litres is known in scientific circles as "not quite big enough".

Other things? Well, the interior fittings are not as good as you might expect. The green and white stitching is wonderful to behold, but the plastics are a bit airline cutlery and the sat-nav screen is the size of a stamp. You'd have to say this doesn't feel the sort of quality you'd get from, say, Audi. The engine, for example, wobbles when you slam the door.

So it's hard to get out of, it's poorly finished, it has a smallish range and the engine is mounted to the car with Blu-Tack. Those are the drawbacks. But don't worry, because there are some upsides as well, most of which are stratospheric.

Let's start with the headline. This car, this four-door saloon, which is priced to take on BMW's 250km/h M3, has a top speed of 307km/h.

That's possible because of the Alfa's smooth and magnificently sonorous 2.9-litre V6 turbo engine. Ferrari (which is controlled by the Agnelli family behind Fiat, the owner of Alfa) is adamant that it's not the same unit it fits to the California, with two cylinders lopped off. The fact that the two engines have the same bore, stroke and V angle is a coincidence, it says. As is the fact that in both the twin-scroll turbo is in the V of the engine, giving instant punch when you so much as twitch your little toe.

It's not the torquiest engine in the world, which means you have to fish around rather more than you'd imagine in the clever eight-speed automatic gearbox. But to compensate, you get 375kW. This means you need to be careful when you're fishing, because, crikey, this car is quick. Laugh-out-loud quick.

And it's an absolute joy to drive.

The steering is fast — there are only two turns lock to lock, which means that on fast, sweeping roads you can steer almost by thought.

Naturally, there's a button to make the car fizzier, and even a setting called Race, which turns the traction control off. I'd leave that alone on the road if I were you. On a track I had a play and was sideways constantly.

The man who project-managed the Quadrifoglio cut his teeth on the Ferrari 458 Speciale. And it shows.

It's not just the big flappy paddles, or the moving spoiler at the front; it's the whole DNA of the car. If Ferrari made a mid-sized, four-door car, it would feel and go exactly like this.

Do not think, however, that it's uncivilised in any way. Even though it sits on tiny wheels and rides close to the ground, it is remarkably smooth.

And while it makes a racket, with added gunfire on the upshifts, it is extremely quiet when you're inside.

In the mountains of Wales, it was sublime. The throttle response, the fast steering and the preposterous rate at which the speedometer climbs combine to make this car feel extremely special. Maybe an M3 would last longer, and maybe fewer knobs would fall off. But the M3 has wonky steering and feels heavy compared with the Alfa and ... I can't believe I've just written that.

What I'm saying, in this straight, no-cocking-about road test, is that Alfa has made a car dynamically better than the BMW. It really has.

This is Iceland beating England.

And I couldn't be more pleased.

FAST FACTS

ALFA ROMEO GIULIA QUADRIFOGLIO

Engine: 2.9-litre turbocharged V6 petrol (375kW/600Nm)

Average fuel 8.5 litres per 100km

TRANSMISSION: Eight-speed automatic, rear-wheel drive

PRICE: £59,000 (TBA in Australia)

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