Alfa Romeo Stelvio
The Alfa Romeo Stelvio, unveiled at the 2016 Los Angeles Auto Show, is Alfa Romeo’s first production SUV — a segment the brand had not contested in over six decades of road car production (the last off-road Alfa being the utilitarian Matta of the 1950s). Named after the Passo dello Stelvio, the highest mountain pass in the Italian Alps at 2,757 metres and renowned for 48 hairpin turns on its eastern approach, the Stelvio was designed to signal that Alfa Romeo’s return to form with the Alfa Romeo Giulia 2016 sedan could be extended into the premium SUV segment without sacrificing the brand’s performance identity. The car is built on the FCA Giorgio platform — the rear-wheel-drive architecture developed for the Giulia and raised by 22 cm for the Stelvio application — giving it a fundamental dynamic advantage over SUV rivals built on transversely-engined, front-wheel-drive-based platforms.
In standard specification, the Stelvio is offered with a 2.0-litre turbocharged inline-four producing between 200 and 280 PS depending on state of tune, mated to an eight-speed ZF automatic gearbox and optional Q4 all-wheel drive. The Q4 system is rear-biased by default — capable of routing up to 100 per cent of torque to the rear axle under normal conditions — and can direct up to 50 per cent to the front when grip demands it. Dimensions are 4,687 mm long, 1,903 mm wide and 1,648 mm tall; the Quadrifoglio version weighs 1,955 kg. The diesel line-up (2.2-litre Multijet II, 150–210 PS) serves European markets where the Stelvio competes as a practical daily vehicle against German rivals. A significant facelift arrived for 2023, bringing revised 3+3 LED headlamps, a new grille treatment, and a 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster with three selectable display modes.
The Stelvio Quadrifoglio is the performance apex of the range and the car that established the Stelvio’s credentials unambiguously. Its 2.9-litre twin-turbocharged V6 — internally designated 690T, a unit developed in close collaboration with Ferrari and shared with the Giulia Quadrifoglio — produces 510 PS (503 hp) and 600 N·m of torque, driving all four wheels through the Q4 system. The result is 0–100 km/h in 3.8 seconds and a top speed of 283 km/h (176 mph). On 29 September 2017, a Stelvio Quadrifoglio driven at the Nürburgring Nordschleife posted a lap time of 7 minutes 51.7 seconds — the fastest lap by a production SUV at the time of its release. The record has since been surpassed by rivals, but at its moment the lap time was a categorical statement: the Stelvio Quadrifoglio was the first SUV to demonstrate that the Nürburgring performance benchmark, previously the exclusive domain of sports cars and saloons, could be achieved by a high-riding five-seat family vehicle. Peak global sales reached approximately 43,000 units in 2018.
Connections
- Alfa Romeo — manufactured_by, 2017–present, source: wikipedia.org
- Alfa Romeo Giulia 2016 — shares Giorgio platform; V6 engine shared with Giulia QV, source: carexpert.com.au