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Chris Harris Drives: the Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio

7K views 45 replies 27 participants last post by  GazGJ 
#1 ·
#2 ·
oh dear, Top Gear should have stopped with Jezza & Co.

this guy is ...... (peeeping sound)
 
#10 ·
Balanced review on the whole but once again being used to a particular approach to engineering ie German does not put you in an unbiased position to review an Italian car,

The ethos will always be different and in this respect Alfa were always going to be in a difficult position, if they produced something more akin to an M3 or C63 AMG they would have been accused of surrendering their ideals and ethos in favour of a market share. they have come in this direction as far as possible without sacrificing the ''spirit'' of the marque. those reviewers that understand this have been kinder being aware that in some respects a direct comparison is not really the way to judge how good a car it is.

It's an Alfa not a BMW, if you want a beemer go buy one, you pays your money and makes your choice..!
 
#12 ·
Seemed a good balanced review to me, well presented. The only issue was that like several reviews before, the sum of the parts and the final assessment (in this case whether the QF is better or on a par with the M3), didn't add up! it's almost like there's a level of working backwards in that the M3 will be assessed as better than the QF, however marginally, and the presenter then has free reign to say as much good stuff about the Alfa as they wish!

Personally I don't think they make enough of one of the key factors which is looks. Looking at all three combatants in the flesh @ Goodwood, the BMW and Merc look very bland and unattractive in comparison. That said, if I didn't have that view I'd undoubtedly be driving a 3 series rather than my beautiful 159!
 
#13 ·
Big fan of CH, my only slight issue with this vid is perceived objectivity. Given from his twitter etc it's clear he had an M3 on loan from BMW as a daily driver for a good long time, he is probably a) very much used to the M3 and settled on it, and b) BMW give him free stuff so don't P them off.
However, he did heap praise on the car and came as close as he probably could to saying it's as good as an M3, so whatever.
If it were my money, I'd have the Alfa 100%
 
#14 ·
Very German biased review. It's normal from British media.

But what bothers me is his inconsistency. He jerk off to Ferrari's turbo engines with character very similar to NA engines and now when we have one in Alfa he's bashing it.

Also he told some technical insights about rear axle and position of it which is a total BS. Alfa's rear suspension is similar to some Ferrari designs but what differs it from German AMG or M models is that it's from the start developed as for performance Quadrifoglio model and base models are just derivation of it including same suspension and track width. Germans develop base models and then for example M model has new suspension with hard bushings and wider track width. Quadrifoglio has some of those soft bushings, it's more comfortable than either of those Germans, and it's a less nervous on imperfect roads and wet conditions.
Did Chris mentioned anything about that? Off-course not.
 
#15 ·
But what bothers me is his inconsistency. He jerk off to Ferrari's turbo engines with character very similar to NA engines and now when we have one in Alfa he's bashing it.
Noticed the same thing. First he says anybody buying this kind of car for interior would be crazy (fully agree) and then moans that the performance-oriented lovely revving (as he notices himself) engine "has no low-end torque". Do we speak about a base diesel model or a car that is supposed to be driven hard? Like if that "low torque" in the low revs is not more than enough to overtake a car when on a B-road without even touching the gear stick (which actually won't happen in the UK, as it is to be auto only).
 
#19 ·
Maybe, maybe not. Cars are almost entirely judged by objective figures and numbers now. From acceleration to nurburgring times.

They don't pay any heed to how good a car actually feels or how much you enjoy it. Reading this week's pistonheads column on the new r8 puts it into perspective how an incredibly capable car can be very dull and boring despite all the objective facts and figures. In this area he clearly loves the giulia.

Not a bad place to be in my opinion, although I agree his opinion on rear axle placement seems like nonsense.
 
#20 ·
I thought it was a good, fair review and he is allowed his opinion as it has to be a subjective interpretation of the car on the road/track versus what the data tells us.

By his own admission, the minor negatives were "nit-picking" and not important. On balance, I felt he was mostly effusive and enthusiastic about it which is great coming from a respected journo-racer who is very much known to be a Posrche/BMW fan.

We can't knock him for referring to what is, after all, the benchmark car in the class.

Good review, thank Chris!


PS - I'd have bought one whatever he'd have said if I had the money. I wouldn't even test drive an M3 as it doesn't really appeal to me.
 
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#21 ·
deciding on whether to buy a car or not by the figures alone is like trying to judge whether you like a piece of music by just looking at the notation! its impossible to predict what the thing will feel like and how those numbers translate in the real world..

however sadly many buyers shortlist cars on this alone and as a result pass by some fantastic options as a result of such narrow minded thinking and unquestioning brand loyalty.

an another point I even saw one reviewer mark the Alfa down on reliabilty, how the :censored: can you mark down a car that is brand spanking new where this will be a complete unknown. it's biased journalism in the same way that the German cars are perceived as reliable despite actual EVIDENCE to the contrary!

the fact is it will take at least 3-4 years of solid reliability good dealer service and positive press to lay to rest the ghost of Alfa's past, fingers crossed it happens ..if not we will likely see the demise of a marque that has been the only real exciting alternative to the big German marques for years.
 
#23 ·
I agree about many things but having been a relatively early adopter of the Giulietta I became aware that certain things such as water into the tailgate and a gear knob top coming away in my hand were due to two factors; a new design and no realworld testing. The Giulia is likely to be the same. The BMW 3 series however changes incrementally one model to the next. However the journalists will only say it's likely to be unreliable as it's an Alfa rather it being a new Alfa.
 
#28 ·
The 500 shares the tailgate wiring loom issue with the Giulietta too !
We had an Audi A2 which had a homing instinct to the dealers for warranty work back in it's day and many of the issues were down to it being a new type of design for the company and I fear the Giulia may be equally different to its predecessors for Alfa. But what the... if I wanted a car bigger than a Giulietta I think I'd be quite prepared to get a Giulia in the knowledge it's the first release.
 
#29 ·
I thought this was reasonably fair. The "lack of low-end torque" is something he cites as both a positive and a negative in the review - yes, it doesn't slam you into the back of the seat on the track, but also, it doesn't slam you into the back of the seat every time you try to move forward in slow motorway traffic.

By the sound of it, Giulia is civilised at civilised speeds, whereas the BMW is a much more aggressive drive in town traffic.

Actually, it's refreshing to see someone who still remembers that road cars are driven on the public road, not racetracks, and it's nice to see Alfa getting respect for going with a softer-riding default suspension setup.

Giulia is too big a car for me, but the reception that Giulia has been getting so far bodes well for the Giulietta's eventual replacement, which will use the same parts and systems as Giulia, and should be out around the time I'm looking to replace my Giulietta...
 
#30 ·
I thought this was reasonably fair. The "lack of low-end torque" is something he cites as both a positive and a negative in the review - yes, it doesn't slam you into the back of the seat on the track, but also, it doesn't slam you into the back of the seat every time you try to move forward in slow motorway traffic.
Well, for me the torque and gas pedal response in Giulietta's Dynamic mode are too sharp (and we're talking 150 HP here), so I suppose in the 500 HP beast it will be still a bit difficult to operate it in the city traffic with manual gearbox.
 
#31 ·
Here's another one with a split opinion about Chris Harris - which I am finding being a relatively common thing amongst Alfisti.

I really like the fact he seems to be genuinely having fun when doing his reviews and gives the idea that he's reasonably knowledgeable and a seriously skilled driver.

However, he actually DOES tend to nitpick a lot while going "I don't want to be nitpicking BUT...", shows a very clear Porsche/BMW bias and, to be entirely honest, sometimes he's out of his depth when he attempts to go deep into technical detail - the statement about the Giulia's "rear axle positioning" is as ridiculous as it gets; I seriously doubt he knows more than the whole pool of engineers, more like "feels different from my M3 and I haven't adapted yet".

The whole review is contraddictory and perplexing, at some point he does some handling comparison with the C63 AMG... which as far as I can tell from reviews, is widely considered as sharp and accurate as an hooligan after 17 Carlsberg.

A good example of all of this is his review of the 4C - where he seems to completely miss the point of the car. You wouldn't compare a Lotus Elise with the Cayman S, to say...

Davide Cironi...the man should do English language pieces. He's got an uncanny ability capturing what really counts, the way a car "speaks" to you. If it's been captioned, you should really check out his 1972 Alfetta review.

Also, being around the same age and from the same general area in Italy (mid-south), a lot of what he reviews when he does vintage cars resonates a lot with me, they were the vehicles we saw and idolized as kids, long before a driving license was even on the plans.

And he's a Porsche owner in all this, so there is hope...
 
#32 ·
I am not happy about Chris Harris’s review, it is contradictory as at one moment he praises how good the Giulia and then at the end he comes up with the subjective conclusion that the BMW is better by a little bit. The most ridiculous comments by far were that the calibration of the torque vectoring is not as good as the M3 maybe because Alfa hasn’t done RWD cars for nearly 30 years. What nonsense, there has always been Maserati and Ferrari where experience of high performance RWD cars is ample.
Also it was very stupid of him to mention tha the gearchange is not as good as the M3, first of all, it is the same ZF box which I have tried and works like a Winchester riffle.
Being an engineer myself and having really looked at the Giulia in detail but also on the german equivalents (out of curiosity) I really cannot see where the better quality and materials are so I doubt that a car journalist will be in a position to assess objectively these characteristics.
My feeling is that there is a lot of bias on the press for the German cars and perhaps there are financial motives that encourage the journalists to have this bias. For me it is really ironic to see titles in magazines like “the Italian M3” etc. It should be more like “ The new Giulia leaves the M3 far behind”
Alfa Romeo did the unthinkable in todays automotive industry world where manufactures ride the same horse until it dies and flog it beyond that (see AUDI VW platforms/engine), they designed from a blank sheet of paper a super saloon which has destroyed the competition in performance figures and the famous ring time. Marchione himself said in a speech “ we have no competition, someone mentioned the BMW, bring it here and lets see”.
Davide Cironi made by far the most honest unbiased review of the car.
I can cold sweat coming to the Germans if the rumor I heard is true, that US dealerships will have the QV german equivalents for potential custoomers to test back to back. This will remove the “paid auto press factor” from the equation.
 
#33 ·
M3 uses a DCT box, not ZF8. However, the latest ZF8 used by the Giulia could be better. It has all the pros of one of the best torque converters out there, ever, combined with a claimed shoft speed of less that 100ms. It's hard to imagine a DCT being better than that.
 
#34 ·
He ment manual ZF 6 speed, which is in QF.


I though M3 uses Getrag's manual?



Anyway, I was also not impressed by Chris Harris, I mostly agree with others who said he was very inconsistent, and for some reason I find him a bit fake, when he's expressing his enthusiasm in car reviews.
 
#35 ·
Literally just passed Giulia QV near Maranello, shadowing a GTC4Lusso prototype by the looks of it, and it looked gorgeous and very much an Alfa. Sod the nit picking, I want one!
 
#38 ·
this is good review

 
#40 ·
I liked that a lot, thanks. I had already read the magazine version, and while the Giulia came in second to the 911R, it seemed to get less column inches that all the other cars.. irritating. That review was very complimentary though and I liked the way he made it very clear it was much faster than both the M2 and M4 GTS. Stitch that!
 
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