2021 Alfa Romeo Stelvio Ti Awd on 2040-cars

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2023 Alfa Romeo Giulia Estrema bridges the Quadrifoglio gap

Alfa Romeo is expanding the 2023 Giulia range with a model named Estrema that was developed for driving enthusiasts. Also available on the 2023 Stelvio, the Estrema trim level bridges the gap between the Veloce variants of both cars and the high-performance Quadrifoglio. "Estrema" is Italian for "extreme," and in this case it denotes a car that — in Alfa Romeo's words — was designed for "a connoisseur of driving." The list of standard features grows with the addition of a limited-slip rear differential and the adaptive Alfa Active Suspension system for both comfort and performance. These updates may not sound major, but they should make a perceptible difference on the kind of twisty roads that the Estrema models were created for. Car-spotters will be able to pick out the Estrema versions in a crowded parking lot by looking for carbon fiber exterior accents (including the piece of trim that underlines the grille), specific wheels that measure 19 inches on the Giulia and 21 inches on the Stelvio, dark "Estrema" emblems and black brake calipers. Inside, there's more carbon fiber, red contrast stitching and a blend of leather and Alcantara upholstery.  The Estrema models aren't any more estrema under the hood than the versions that they're based on. The only engine available in the United States is a 2.0-liter four-cylinder turbocharged to deliver 280 horsepower and 306 pound-feet of torque. Rear-wheel-drive and an eight-speed automatic transmission come standard on the Giulia, though Alfa Romeo's Q4 all-wheel-drive system is available at an extra cost, and the Stelvio is exclusively offered with all-wheel-drive. With the Q4 system, the Giulia reaches 60 mph from a stop in 5.1 seconds. On sale now, Alfa Romeo's Estrema models are scheduled to reach dealers across the nation in the third quarter of 2022. Buyers have four colors to choose from: Alfa White, Alfa Rosso, Misano Blue, and Vulcano Black. Pricing is set at $56,685 for the rear-wheel-drive Giulia, $58,685 for the all-wheel-drive model, and $60,545 for the Stelvio. Note that these figures include a mandatory $1,595 destination charge. Related Video:

Ralph Gilles talks minivans, Millennials, mobility, and kissing Alfa Romeos

We sat down with Ralph Gilles, the global head of design for Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, at the 2017 Detroit Auto Show. The veteran stylist has worked for the company for 25 years, and oversees the design of all of the products in the FCA portfolio – everything from mobility pods to Maseratis. This serves Gilles just fine, as his personal automotive interests are exceedingly diverse. The FCA stand was unusually quiet (until Vice President Joe Biden stopped by at the end of our time there) and Gilles was willing to weigh in on a wide range of subjects. Autoblog: We're seeing all of these autonomous mobility pods like Portal being presented at auto shows like CES or NAIAS, but we're not seeing any adoption of this kind of small vehicle in the market. What's your perspective on our pod-like autonomous future versus our truck-centric present? Ralph Gilles: Obviously I pay attention to the industry as much as your readers and yourself, and everyone has a take on the future. We had a debate, we could have done a supercar or something for pure sex appeal [ apparently that's also in the works], but we chose something practical, to really look at the future in a different perspective. We have these Millennials, a huge swath of people born between 1982 and 2004, and the oldest ones are turning 35 right about now, and a lot of them are having families later in life but when they have them they have a little more buying power, so it makes for an interesting cocktail. The one stipulation we had on the Portal project was that everyone had to be a Millennial to be on the team. So that excluded me, I had more of a coach role on the team. And to your point, the Portal in its current state as you see it is not going to be on the road tomorrow. But there's a lot of ideas, a lot of connectivity ideas, a lot of styling ideas, even lighting and technologies that will absolutely find their way into vehicles in the next few years. AB: Being a Detroiter, all of this attention we've had recently in Vegas, CES – I heard that they're maybe going to be running the show at the same time next year. Do you feel a little protective of the Detroit Show? RG: Yeah, it's something to watch. I hope it's not an aggressive thing on their part, by moving the shows on top of each other. They're both important shows. CES, I've been going to for the last five years, and it's changing. There's a lot more automotive content, but there are a lot more start-ups too, and it's interesting to watch.

A car writer's year in new vehicles [w/video]

Christmas is only a week away. The New Year is just around the corner. As 2014 draws to a close, I'm not the only one taking stock of the year that's we're almost shut of. Depending on who you are or what you do, the end of the year can bring to mind tax bills, school semesters or scheduling dental appointments. For me, for the last eight or nine years, at least a small part of this transitory time is occupied with recalling the cars I've driven over the preceding 12 months. Since I started writing about and reviewing cars in 2006, I've done an uneven job of tracking every vehicle I've been in, each year. Last year I made a resolution to be better about it, and the result is a spreadsheet with model names, dates, notes and some basic facts and figures. Armed with this basic data and a yen for year-end stories, I figured it would be interesting to parse the figures and quantify my year in cars in a way I'd never done before. The results are, well, they're a little bizarre, honestly. And I think they'll affect how I approach this gig in 2015. {C} My tally for the year is 68 cars, as of this writing. Before the calendar flips to 2015 it'll be as high as 73. Let me give you a tiny bit of background about how automotive journalists typically get cars to test. There are basically two pools of vehicles I drive on a regular basis: media fleet vehicles and those available on "first drive" programs. The latter group is pretty self-explanatory. Journalists are gathered in one location (sometimes local, sometimes far-flung) with a new model(s), there's usually a day of driving, then we report back to you with our impressions. Media fleet vehicles are different. These are distributed to publications and individual journalists far and wide, and the test period goes from a few days to a week or more. Whereas first drives almost always result in a piece of review content, fleet loans only sometimes do. Other times they serve to give context about brands, segments, technology and the like, to editors and writers. So, adding up the loans I've had out of the press fleet and things I've driven at events, my tally for the year is 68 cars, as of this writing. Before the calendar flips to 2015, it'll be as high as 73. At one of the buff books like Car and Driver or Motor Trend, reviewers might rotate through five cars a week, or more. I know that number sounds high, but as best I can tell, it's pretty average for the full-time professionals in this business.