Alfa Romeo Stelvio Quadrifoglio: A true driver’s car for better and worse

What do you do when Alfa Romeo asks you if you’d like to enjoy something like the thrills of driving some of the finest roads on the planet? Famous places like the Amalfi coast road in Italy, the Great Ocean Road in Australia? Or locations I’d not really heard of before like the stunning Transfagarasan Pass in Romania and the Trollstigen in Norway? All very tantalising. These entertaining destinations had been chosen for their automotive thrill potential by the highly discerning members of the Alfa Romeo Owners Club.

Unfortunately, the offer was rather a literal one as it was indeed to try out the admittedly formidable Alfa Romeo Stelvio Quadrifoglio in places like those storied destinations, but not the destinations themselves. “Alfa Romeo Stelvio Quadrifoglio”, by the way is Italian for “fast, posh SUV”; and the car is named after the Stelvio Pass, Italy’s highest and most spectacular, so its all very fitting, albeit transposed into a British environment.

There is a war on, and a cost of living crisis, I suppose, so mustn’t grumble. Instead, with the aid of Getty Images, Alfa Romeo had identified raids in Great Britain that closely mocked their more glamorous counterparts. So, even though I wasn’t going to drive British – the Stelvio is made proudly in Cassino in south-central Italy – I was going to be driving British. And just to prove how parochial I can be I chose the nearest ones to me – the Peak District’s Snake Pass and Mam Tor, replicating the San Bernardino Pass and the Juliet Pass, respectively, in Switzerland.

I enjoyed myself. The British roads were every bit as challenging and beautiful to explore as I’d hoped, and I was more than happy to extend my knowledge of this most charming region of England, heading up towards Manchester and the High Peak which I’d not spent much time in before. Yes, it’s drizzly and overcast much of the time, but who needs coffee stops in the Alps when you can call into Glossop for a pot of tea and, appropriately enough, lemon drizzle cake? As a matter of fact, if you find yourself in the centre of the lovely, bustling town of Bakewell you’ll find a cafe that, incongruously, serves fine, authentic Austrian sausage and expensive exotic coffees. Best of both worlds, then.

Recovering from a brush with Covid (I’d let my guard down to attend a “social gathering” I knew might spell trouble), I couldn’t hike around as much as I’d wanted to, but every so often I’d find a little hill to trudge up or a riverside to meander along to.

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Which means that I was able to spend an inordinate amount of time just motoring along the A57, the A623 and their tributaries, enjoying the Stelvio Quadrifolgio. It’s a true driver’s car, in good ways and, it has to be admitted, less good. The performance is sweltering – a few seconds to get to 60mph, and an unusually high top speed of 176mph (at least until Liz Truss “delivers” on her manifesto pledge to abolish speed limits, or something like that). That’s “Peak” performance, with oodles of fine Italian flair, and it’s no surprise that Maserati and ex-Ferrari engineers helped make the most of its twin-turbo all-aluminium engine driving all four wheels for extra stability via a carbon fibre driveshaft. There’s a big red button on the steering wheel with the word “Race” on it, which makes the already angry beast snarl like Suella Braverman visiting a refugee centre. The dash lights up with volcanic-red dials, and it’s turned into something more like a true racing car, and you’ll just never stop accelerating. The Peak District is very popular with motorcyclists who like the winding roads, but you can get better, safer thrills with a Quadrifoglio, named after the four-leafed clover that adorns the side of competition Alfas.

There are a few downsides… I have to confess that, on checking the official data, this scorcher will only return you 23.9 mpg (though you hardly buy this to be economical), and pumps a pretty dismal 267g of CO₂ into the atmosphere for every kilometre you travel. So the sad downside of all the fun you can have is the frequent, expensive, fuel stops and the relatively high company tax liability. On the other hand, on a boring motorway run with the adaptive cruise control and lane assist taking the tedium out of the journey I managed to get nearer to 40mpg out of the thing.

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The other downside to it being a quintessential “driver’s car” is that it isn’t that nice a “passenger’s car”, so I was told. The suspension is on the hard side of firm, and your companion will get chucked around as you tumble down Mam Tor, for example. The high-backed, hugging carbon fibre bucket seats are all very well, but they make it even harder to get up and into the Stelvio if you’re diminutive. Aside from that, the Stelvio is still a pretty practical SUV, but you might prefer the cheaper, more sedate editions of the Stelvio, and save yourself a handy £30,000 in the process. I should also mention that the parking assist warning beeps packed up for a bit, unaccountably, and then almost fixed themselves. An Alfa has to have a foible or two, you see, or else it would be a Toyota. Oh, and these giant 21inch alloys are too easy to kerb.

Alfa’s sportiest edition of its premium SUV is getting a little old now – on the road since 2017 – and it shows in the slightly “last generation” touchscreen for example (though recently improved). But for its combination of style and sheer brute exuberance, it has few if any peers. Such cars as this will soon be but evocative memories, but Buxton, Windy Knoll and Whaley Bridge will be much quieter when even the Alfa Romeos are electric.