The Alfa Romeo Giulia has been without a doubt the most anticipated automotive debut so far this year but we still don’t know everything about it. That’s because the Italians will reveal full details about the rear-wheel drive sports sedan at the Frankfurt Motor Show.
However, in an exclusive interview with CAR, the Giulia’s chief engineer Philippe Krief revealed some interesting new things about the Giulia. For example, the sedan was developed in just two-and-a-half years. “You ask every car maker: doing a car in two years, everyone will tell you it’s not possible. The industry standard says four, the longest say five years, everywhere in the world. We had to do it in two and a half years,” Krief said.
As Sergio Marchionne put it, the only way to achieve that was to do something totally different, and Krief says that’s exactly what the Giulia is. The engineer also revealed weight-to-power ratio was the main criteria for developing the new car, which had to tip the scales at around 1,500 kg for the high performance Cloverleaf (or QV) version.
“Suspension arms are mostly aluminum, front and rear, the engines are aluminum, the doors and fenders are all in aluminum, the boot on this one is carbon fiber, the roof also, we have also the propshaft in carbon fiber and structure of the seats,” Krief said.
As a former senior engineer at Ferrari, he said the Giulia “drives fantastically” and is “precise, precise, very quick, very agile, very stable.” The Cloverleaf version’s torque vectoring system certainly has its contribution, as it can send all its torque to a single rear wheel. He also said the Giulia be offered with more engines, which will be shown in Frankfurt. The lineup may include four-cylinder units and even a V6 diesel.
Finally, Krief talked about the Alfa Romeo Giulia’s aerodynamics, more specifically about the splitter which increases downforce in corners. “In curves, the splitter is working to give you more downforce; go back to a straight line and we want low Cx, low drag,” the engineer said.
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