Alfa Romeo Tonale review

Alfa has melded tradition and tech – with a welcome sprinkling of tartiness – in impressive fashion. The dials, for example, are round and replicate Alfa’s historic twin-porthole design despite now being digital. They’re readable, handsome and nicely configurable.

Elsewhere, the materials are good: solid and prosaic where they can be (notably the lovely billet aluminium paddles behind the steering wheel and Alfa’s DNA drive mode dial), plusher and wearing delightful stitching and motifs elsewhere, and the whole thing feels solidly screwed together.

The centre console has been redesigned with a new rotary drive selector in place of the old school chunky gearlever, and you the Alfa's mid-life facelift has brought with it new colour options, including two-tone Alcantara in black and white, and red leather.

What about the tech?

Alongside those sweetly positioned dials is a 10.25in touchscreen that’s both large enough to be useful but small enough so as not to distract. An uncommon trick. It’s perfectly easy to wrap your head around its layouts, too, or even easier to just pop your phone into a USB port and use Apple CarPlay or Android Auto.

There’s even Alexa connectivity which allows you to bark instructions at your home appliances from the comfort of the commute home.

It’s worth noting those ports are both traditional USB and USB-C in the front and back of the car, with a wireless charging pad up front. Again, more evidence that plenty of thought has gone on in here. Even the climate controls have dodged getting involved in the touchscreen. Over-the-air updates ensure there’s still a healthy glance towards the future as well.

How roomy is it?

Those below six foot will be plenty comfortable in the rear and it’s not too claustrophobic back there, whatever the 8C supercar-inspired window line might suggest. Three people should be happy enough back there.

Behind them is a competitive 500-litre boot (1,550 litres with the back seats flipped down). Admittedly those figures drop to 385 and 1,430 for the plug-in Tonale.