When Alfa Romeo dropped details of the facelifted Giulia and Stelvio last year there was no mention of the BMW M-rivalling Quadrifoglio versions of the compact sedan and SUV. But as these shots prove, Alfa hasn’t axed its performance flagships and is now getting ready to reintroduce the upgraded models to its lineup.
Photographs and videos posted to the Instalfisti and Sicilyalfaclub Instagram accounts show Quadrifoglio versions of the Giulia and Stelvio taking part in what looks like some kind of marketing exercise or advertising shoot. And to be honest, the exterior styling updates are so minor that if Alfa hadn’t gone to the trouble of trying to hide details like the QV badge on the fender of the sedan and draping a cover over the SUV, it’s possible that most people wouldn’t have paid too much attention to them.
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Unfortunately for Alfa, car geeks do pay attention to the details and the person who grabbed these clips and images must have spotted that the cars were fitted with the LED headlights and smoked taillights that we first got to see on the facelifted versions of the regular Giulia and Stelvio last year. The headlights are styled like the ones on the little Tonale SUV, which in turn takes inspiration from the 1980s SZ coupe, and use Matrix LED adaptive beam technology.
And while these images don’t show it, we know from the launch of the non-QV 2023 sedans and SUVs that there’s another major tech upgrade going on inside the cabin of both cars. Each gains a new 12.3-inch digital gauge cluster that can be configured in Evolve, Relax and Heritage modes. Evolve features modern graphics and Heritage mimics the look of 1960s Alfa instruments, while Relax reduces the amount of information on display.
We’ll have to wait to see if Alfa has any mechanical upgrades in store for the Quadrifoglio twins, but if it does, they’re likely to be very minor. That said, since Alfa released the original models a few years back BMW has upgraded both the M3 Competition and X3M to match the Italian cars’ 503 hp (510 PS) power outputs, so it’s possible Alfa might liberate few more ponies from the 2.9-liter Ferrari-derived bi-turbo V6 to regain the upper hand in the horsepower war.
Photos Inalfisti & sicilyalfaclub /Instagram