Alfa Romeo Giulia (2016)
The Alfa Romeo Giulia — Type 952, the first model built on the “Giorgio” platform — was unveiled on 24 June 2015 at the Alfa Romeo Museum in Arese and entered production for a February 2016 market launch. It represented one of the most consequential decisions in Alfa Romeo’s modern corporate history: the return to a longitudinal-engine, rear-wheel-drive architecture for a mass-market car, ending a 24-year absence that had begun when the 75 was discontinued in 1992. The name itself carried weight — deliberately reviving the designation used by Orazio Satta Puliga for the Series 105 Giulia in 1962 — and the unveiling date, the 105th anniversary of Alfa Romeo’s founding, was chosen for the same reason.
The engineering decision was taken under the presidency of Sergio Marchionne at FCA (Fiat Chrysler Automobiles), who on approximately 22 April 2013 telephoned Philippe Krief — then serving as technical director at Ferrari, where he had led the chassis of the Ferrari 458 Speciale — with a direct commission: “We want to do a completely new thing… rear-wheel drive… new Alfa Romeo… so we start from scratch. You’ve got two years and two months.” Krief assembled a core team of around ten engineers and moved to Modena the next day alongside Gianluca Pivetti, the Ferrari engine chief responsible for the Ferrari family of turbocharged V engines. Within the first month, hard-points were fixed and ambitious targets set. The Giorgio platform — all-new, purpose-built for Alfa Romeo — used aluminium and carbon-fibre reinforced plastic to achieve a lightweight structure, yielding a near-perfect 50/50 front-to-rear weight distribution through careful mass placement rather than the transaxle layout of the 75. The Giulia Quadrifoglio diesel variant arrived at 1,374 kg — missing the original 1,350 kg target by 24 kg, but still 130 kg lighter than equivalent BMW and Mercedes-Benz models.
The Giulia Quadrifoglio — the high-performance variant carrying Alfa Romeo’s racing emblem, the Quadrifoglio Verde first painted by Ugo Sivocci in 1923 — received a 2.9-litre bi-turbo V6 (the “690T” engine, bore 86.5 mm × stroke 82 mm, developed by Pivetti’s team in Modena) producing 510 hp, with cylinder liners silicon-carbide coated and a crankshaft in vanadium-alloyed steel — techniques drawn directly from Ferrari practice. The engine is a sibling of the Ferrari F154 turbocharged V8, not a derivative: a new unit created by the same engineer using proven geometries. At a Nürburgring session in September 2015, a production-specification Giulia Quadrifoglio lapped in 7 minutes 29 seconds — at that time the fastest four-door production saloon ever to do so, surpassing the BMW M3 GTS. First North American deliveries arrived September 2016, marking Alfa Romeo’s return to the US saloon market for the first time since 1995.
The Giorgio platform was subsequently used for the Alfa Romeo Stelvio SUV (2017). A limited-edition Giulia GTA and GTAm followed in 2021 — 500 units, 540 hp, with aerodynamic modifications evoking the original Giulia GTA that had won nine European Touring Car Championships in the 1960s. The Giulia 2016 is broadly recognised as the modern expression of everything Alfa Romeo originally stood for: rear-wheel drive, twin-turbocharged V6, near-perfect balance, Italian coachwork — and a name that directly connects it to the 1962 original that Satta Puliga announced at Monza.
Connections
- Alfa Romeo — manufactured_by, 2016–present, source: wikipedia.org
- Alfa Romeo Giulia (1962) — name tribute; same compact executive positioning; GTA/GTAm evokes original GTA lineage, source: wikipedia.org
- Alfa Romeo 75 — last mass-market Alfa with rear-wheel drive before the Giulia 2016; 24-year gap ended, source: wikipedia.org
- Quadrifoglio Verde — Quadrifoglio variant carries the racing emblem originating from Sivocci’s 1923 Targa Florio, source: wikipedia.org
- Alfa Romeo Museum — unveiled at Arese museum, 105th anniversary, June 2015, source: wikipedia.org
- Fiat — parent company (FCA) funded Giorgio platform under Marchionne’s €5 billion revival plan, source: wikipedia.org
- Targa Florio — Quadrifoglio Verde emblem originates from Sivocci’s 1923 Targa Florio win, source: wikipedia.org