2018 Alfa Romeo Stelvio Review

CARLOS LAGO: Welcome to Nashville. I've flown out to test drive the new Alfa Romeo Stelvio. The Stelvio is a compact, luxury-oriented SUV that competes against the BMW X3, Audi Q5, Mercedes Benz GLC, Porsche Macan, Jaguar F pace, and on and on. The list is so long because this is a very hot and very competitive segment. So you've got to stand out. Now, the way Alfa Romeo does this is they've named the Stelvio after a very curvy road in the Italian Alps. It's kind of a strange thing. You would typically think a name like that would be reserved for a sports car, but not for Alfa Romeo. The Stelvio name indicates what Alfa Romeo is trying to do with this car, what they want to convey with this car. And that's a sense of driving passion and driving enjoyment. Inside and out, this is a very unique and parts of it very attractive look that sets it aside from the typical luxury compact SUV. There's a purposefulness to the design that says, this is something that has sporty intentions. I mean, just look at the wheels, for example. The latest Alfa Romeo wheels look amazing. Some parts of it might be hit or miss but that's for you to decide. I still go back and forth on the front end of this car, though the rear, the rear 3/4, especially this thing, looks nice. The same is true inside. It's an interior that almost might seem plain, but it's a careful use of materials in it. Its simplicity gives it an attraction that will make it seem at home on the day-to-day usage. Now, every Stelvio except for the high performance version comes with a turbocharged two-liter four cylinder that makes 280 horsepower and 306 pound/feet of torque. Attached to that two-liter turbocharged four cylinder is an 8-speed automatic and all Stelvios come with all-wheel-drive. It's a rear-biased all-wheel-drive system. And most of the time it's directing 100% of the available torque to the rear wheels. But in rare instances, it can set as much as 60% up to the front end. Now, this is supposed to help give it a more natural-feeling sensation when it comes to handling. Although you probably have to be pushing it to notice the effects or be a very astute super sensitive driver. So those kinds of things. The ride is on the firmer side and it's controlled nicely. You don't get a sense that this thing weighs the 4,000 pounds or plus that it does weight. And that's really nice. Driving a sport version of the Stelvio, which comes with these enormous aluminum shift paddles, they kind of look like they're novelty size. And there's a couple of things about these shift pedals that are actually pretty nice. When you put this thing in manual mode and start relying on them, they hold gears even if you run into red line. They want to make this experience like driving a manual vehicle. One of the things we have noticed, though, is that this car employs a brake-by-wire system. There's no mechanical connection between the brake pedal and the brakes themselves. It's all done electronically. And this can-- most of the time it feels OK, but occasionally you do get this sense of uncanny valley, where the response isn't as linear as you would like from a brake pedal. You press on the pedal sometimes and it can take a fraction of a second longer to ramp up the brake response that you're looking for. General driving, it's fine. It just takes some getting used to. The acceleration is impressive. When you come to a stop there's a bit of a delay. Part of it's because of turbo lag. There's only so much you can do running a ton of boost through a small displacement engine. But once this motor gets going, it has no problem developing speed. The goal of this vehicle to make driving more engaging, more satisfying, more fun than your typical luxury SUV, I think they've done a very good job at that. At least in this initial impression. Such that I've got to make sure I'm watching my speed, and it's Parkway here. I can't wait to get this car back to our office to do more extended testing on it. But for the time being, this looks like a very promising first drive.