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  • Driven: the original Dodge Dart

    With a new 2012 Dodge Dart announced in Detroit, we take a spin in the iconic original

    Dodge, Fiat, Alfa Romeo

  • Giulietta Cloverleaf vs Megane RenaultSport

    Can France and Italy offer credible alternatives to German hot hatchery? There’s only one way to find out...

    Alfa Romeo Giulietta, Renault Megane RS, Galleries

  • Alfa Romeo Giulietta

    First drive: Alfa Romeo Giulietta

    TopGear man thrashes Alfa’s 147 replacement

    Alfa Romeo Giulietta, Galleries, First Drives

  • Alfa Romeo Giulietta

    Alfa Romeo Giulietta, Galleries

  • Alfa Romeo Giulietta

    Honest. If you're thinking of buying a Golf, put the Giulietta on your ‘to really consider quite seriously' list. It drives well - excellently, in fact - and has a fine range of turbocharged, direct injection engines. Interior space is much improved on the 147, refinement is good, build quality appears to be almost... German.

    Just why is the Volkswagen Golf so great? Read our car review and find out...

    Alfa Romeo Giulietta

  • Alfa Romeo Giulietta

    The soon-to-arrive Giulietta Cloverleaf - Alfa's Golf GTI rival, which will pack 235bhp and meatier visuals, should help that. We'll wait until then to declare ourselves smitten with the Giulietta. For now, we sturdily salute the newest Alfa as a fine, mainstream car.

    Alfa Romeo Giulietta

  • Alfa Romeo Giulietta

    Maybe it's just a visual thing: though the Giulietta isn't a minger by any means, but - if you'll excuse the rampant subjectivity - isn't Alfa's most elegant design of recent years. Maybe we're trying to eat our cake and have it: we spend years moaning about the flimsiness of Alfas, and then as soon as they build a solid, refined car, we moan that it's characterless. Either way, though the Giulietta caters brilliantly to the Golf/Focus market, maybe it's just a little too sober to grab unreformed petrolheads by the man-parts.

    Alfa Romeo Giulietta

  • Alfa Romeo Giulietta

    Grip - even on the sodden Italian roads of our test drive - is impressive, and there's an almost organic quality to the steering that makes your A3 feel lifeless. It's great. Fun.

    We drove the 167bhp version of Alfa's 1.4-litre four-pot turbo petrol engine, featuring Fiat's clever new ‘MultiAir' variable-valve tech (a 118bhp version of the same engine, as well as two diesels in 104bhp and 168bhp flavour).

    Alfa Romeo Giulietta

  • Alfa Romeo Giulietta

    Spotted a ‘but' looming large on the horizon? Yeah, you're right. But let's leave the ‘but' to one side for a second, and talk about the Giulietta's underpinnings.

    You're not looking at a Bravo in a smarter suit. The Giulietta is the first car to get Fiat's boringly-named-but-thoroughly-excellent ‘Compact' platform, formed of lightweight, high-tensile steel to keep weight down. This means it's lightish and, with aluminium multi-link suspension at the rear, brilliantly supple on the road, striking a neat balance between comfort and agile handling.

    Alfa Romeo Giulietta

  • Alfa Romeo Giulietta

    What a very, very good car this is. The Giulietta - Alfa's long-awaited replacement for the 147 - is, by every grown-up, road-testerish criterion, a genuine rival for the Golf and A3.

    Words: Sam Philip

    Alfa Romeo Giulietta