2018 Alfa Romeo Stelvio ReviewEdmunds Test Drive

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..