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Alfa Romeo cancels plans for Giulia wagon to focus on Stelvio development

Automotive enthusiasts can talk all day long about the benefits of wagons over their respective crossover stablemates, but despite our protestations the case for the wagon seems to fall on deaf ears, especially in America. That seems to be the reason cash-strapped automaker Alfa Romeo has nixed any plans for a wagon variant of the new Giulia. According to Car, Alfa manufacturing chief Alfredo Altavilla believes the company can engineer the Stelvio SUV to drive as well as a Giulia wagon would – so no need for both. Porsche has shown with the Cayenne and the Macan that an SUV can be an excellent performance machine. That being said, as good as performance crossovers have shown themselves to be, the higher weight and center of gravity puts them at a fundamental disadvantage to a wagon. Killing the Giulia wagon is disappointing, but it's a pure business move. The company needs to focus on expanding it's lineup, not building variants of already existing models. Alfa is hoping to boost sales into the hundreds of thousands, and building a low-volume performance station wagon is not the way to do it. Despite the loss of the wagon, rumors persist that a two-door version of the Giulia is set to debut in Geneva. Related Video:

2022 Alfa Romeo Giulia, Stelvio get more safety, convenience features

Although the 2022 Alfa Romeo Giulia sports sedan and the Stelvio crossover aren't significantly different for the new model year, they do boast a bunch of new features as standard. These include safety, convenience and the odd appearance feature. The trim names have been tweaked slightly, too, and base prices are up from last year. Leading the new standard features are safety ones. All Giulias and Stelvios now have blind-spot monitoring with emergency intervention, adaptive cruise control, lane-departure warning, automatic high-beam headlights and front and rear parking sensors. As for convenience, all these Alfas get front and rear heated seats, navigation, wireless phone charging, and an auto-dimming rearview mirror. Finally, both Alfas get slightly sportier looks with dark trim. The Giulia and Stelvio Sprint and Veloce trims now have standard paddle shifters, and aluminum pedals have been added to select trims. 2022 Alfa Romeo Stelvio View 9 Photos Speaking of trim levels, the line-up has been slightly tweaked. Veloce replaces the Ti Sport trim level. Sprint still represents the base trim, with the regular Ti focusing on luxury. The Quadrifoglio trims carry on as well. Base prices have climbed for both models, though. The Giulia Sprint increases by $1,940 to $44,445, and the Stelvio Sprint goes up by $2,140 to $46,645. You can find base prices for all Giulia and Stelvio models listed below. Giulia Sprint: $44,445 Ti: $47,245 Veloce: $52,385 Quadrifoglio: $81,525 Stelvio Sprint: $46,645 Ti: $52,355 Veloce: $53,825 Quadrifoglio: $88,345 Related Video:

Form and function in fairly equal parts | 2018 Alfa Romeo Stelvio First Drive

Alfa Romeo, a brand synonymous with sports cars that combine beautiful Italian design with historically dodgy reliability, now makes a crossover. The Stelvio is named after what is quite possibly the best driving road in the world, and the automaker would have you believe that it is the most purely focused driver's ute in the world. To that end, the Stelvio boasts a perfect 50/50 front-to-rear weight distribution, a fast 12.0:1 steering ratio, and an all-wheel-drive system that's tuned to send 100 percent of the engine's power to the rear wheels whenever possible. All of those bits add up to an SUV that's genuinely fun to drive on winding roads. Think of the Stelvio as an Alfa Romeo Giulia with a suspension lift kit that puts you 2.5 inches higher off the tarmac. Yes, those stilts mean the crossed-over Alfa isn't quite as sharp as the Giulia, but the Stelvio isn't at all dimwitted. It's a true Alfa Romeo, in spirit and in execution, right down to its standard carbon-fiber driveshaft. The Stelvio shares its 111-inch wheelbase and its double-wishbone front and Alfa Link rear suspension systems with the Giulia. That's not to say that the Stelvio drives as well or looks as good as the Giulia. The crossover is 2 inches longer and 8.9 inches taller than the sedan from which it was born. We got the feeling that we were sitting on top of the car's chassis instead of within it, which is due entirely to the high seating position that American drivers are so fond of. And whereas the Giulia wears its sheetmetal like a slinky little black dress, the Stelvio's Scudetto front fascia and Trilobo air intakes are stretched over a much larger frame and its sides are sculpted in a more masculine way. Still, the Stelvio is an attractive beast, inside and out. It's unmistakably Italian, which is to say well-tailored with an impeccable form that influences but begrudgingly follows function. Leather seating surfaces are standard. From the driver's seat, the dashboard is dominated by two binnacles housing the tachometer and speedometer. In between is an LCD display that shows a bunch more relevant information. A second screen in an exaggerated widescreen format houses the bespoke infotainment system from Magneti Marelli. That LCD's unique shape makes it look smaller than the Stelvio's competitors, especially as its pinched height makes the backup camera image appear pretty small.