Alfa Romeo Giulia GTA review

Anyone familiar with the Giulia interior will realise that there’s been a fair bit of raciness added to the GTA, more so with the GTAm. There are still the usual touchscreens and drive selector, but the Sabelt carbon buckets are more adjustable than they initially appear, and there’s a three-point belt for convenience alongside the race harnesses. In the rear of the GTAm is a rectangle of colour-coded rollcage, a fire extinguisher bottle in the middle, flanked by a couple of recesses in which to store your helmets. Interestingly, there are exterior doorhandles for the rear doors, but blank alcantara door cards on the inside. It makes sense - just looks a little odd.

Still, the seating position is good and low, the wheel adjustable to get your relationship with the rim and the column-mounted paddles just so. It’s a surprisingly comfortable place to hang out for a few miles, even if you’re on a real road rather than a racetrack. Although you will notice that the GTAm is less concerned with NVH compliance than a standard QV - blame the thinner windscreen glass, Lexan rear window and lack of sound-deadening for that. Mind you, that Akrapovic exhaust isn’t exactly a bad soundtrack to hum along to.

As far as equipment goes, it’s not really the point, but you do get electric front windows, a decent stereo and air-con, as well as the usual driver assistance systems, sat-nav and CarPlay/Android Auto. It feels pared back rather than stripped out, and means that even as the GTAm, you could happily use it day-to-day. As long as you don’t intend to carry more than one friend at a time.