An orgy of happiness
I decided not to test the Alfa Romeo Tonale. Sorry Alfa, but I’m not going to say goodbye to you in an SUV. Precisely out of respect for the brand that I do not see surviving the plug era, simply because an Alfa cannot do without sound more than any other brand. For the same reason, of course, I took the opportunity to drive the sharpened Giulia for the last time with both hands. I remember the first encounter with that car like it was yesterday. Everything I loved about driving became an orgy of happiness in the Giulia.
I understand the questions. Why would you, especially when you see what the joke costs with today’s bpm surcharges. From 65 grand, continuously up to 76 for a Competizione, not to mention the 130 grand for a Quadrifoglio. It makes you dizzy when you see what you can buy for less or the same amount of fun. Isn’t it just too late for combustion engine power sedans?
That depends entirely on how you look at the relationship between return and costs. With a goat path for e-fuels, Germany has just drawn an interesting line through the European intention to ban the sale of new cars with a combustion engine from 2035. In the original proposal, a second-hand Giulia was also torn through the cracks, so that the Alfaman can enjoy his Alfa for many years to come. If he/she/they/them knows how to spread the depreciation over that eternity, there is – apart from high maintenance and fuel costs, but he was used to them – nothing really wrong and such a car is for the real enthusiasts even now no destructive investment. In fact, after my introduction to the discreetly renewed device, I say to the Alfisti: Do it, people. It’s your last chance for a real car, and it’s going to be unforgettable.
Before I got in I made a decision. I wanted to feel like an Alpha rider one more time. So I took one more long Alfa trip as if it were 1978, as if speed cameras and average speed checks didn’t exist yet and the car was an Alfetta or a GTV, a real one. For example, I raced from Groningen to Rotterdam and back on Saturday, 248 kilometers there and 248 kilometers back.
In the depths of my soul there was a doubt whether after all those crushing electric super sprints it could be as fun as I hoped. I know better than I’d like how sluggish my own petrol cars feel after a week of plugging in. What could a two-liter petrol engine with 280 hp offer against the electrical supremacy of a Tesla Model 3 Performance or a BMW i4 M50? Out of frustration, I was perhaps unrealistically hoping for a miracle. In many EVs I enjoy the comfort and quietness, but rarely the driving, except in a single BMW, including my own i3. It’s all so artificial, it doesn’t sound like anything, I hate the fake noises those bitches make; the acceleration is not an exciting acceleration but the abstract flash from state zero to state one hundred. To me, those superior A-to-B machines aren’t really cars anymore. Emotionally speaking, and it’s taken me a long time to admit that, I’m staying petrolhead. When I accelerate, I want to hear something. Like in a good conversation you like to get a real answer to a question. That dialogue is completely missing in an EV, sorry.
In the Giulia Competizione I knew from the first cloverleaf; yes, you will make me very happy. The sound could be a bit more intense, but few cars go through a corner that hard, tight and neutral and that wonderful contact between driver and technology remains a sensation. After that first corner I took all the corners twice as fast as in my old Volvo. Straightforward he did pretty well too; in the middle of the night I drove Rotterdam – Groningen in two hours.
Hand on heart: the number of cars with which I had such intense contact in recent years can be counted on the fingers of one hand, and they were never fully electric. No EV tastes so delicious. What a horrible conclusion for the enthusiast, who I therefore have to urge to fatten up a piggy bank for one last Giulia as soon as possible. Wow.
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl