New Alfa Romeo Giulia demonstrates Alfa’s focus on performance

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The reveal of the new Alfa Romeo Giulia – with the range-topping Quadrifoglio revealed – illustrates Alfa’s determination to focus on performance.

The reveal of the new Alfa Romeo Giulia last week was the top story of the week on Cars UK, and that’s probably because Alfa chose to reveal the new Giulia in its BMW M3 bashing guise, complete with a Ferrari-derived 3.0 litre V6 with 503bhp.

Revealing the Giulia in its most powerful guise first is the opposite of what usually happens – the more prosaic models to appeal to a mass market normally turn up first – but Alfa’s ultimate boss, Sergio Marchionne, is keen to demonstrate that performance now comes first for Alfa.

Speaking to Automotive News, Marchionne claims the Giulia can beat the Germans at their own game, and that each of the new models planned by Alfa in the next few years will be revealed from the top down, just so there’s no doubt that Alfa are all about performance and driving.

Marchionne also revealed that the Giulia will be available in Europe before the end of 2015 (and in the US in early 2016) and that it will cost under €100k – which equates to around £71,000 – compared the the BMW M3’s £56.5k and the Mercedes C63 AMG £60k.

The Giulia looks on paper to have an appealing combination of looks, power and dynamics, but will pricing it a chunk higher than its German rivals kill it at birth?

Still, an Alfa focused on performance has to be applauded.