1991 Alfa Romeo 164l Automatic, Blue on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Editors' Choice: Top Five 2015 Frankfurt Motor Show Debuts

Consider the 2015-16 auto show season officially kicked off. The Frankfurt Motor Show offered a great look at the newest crop of production cars and conceptual machines, and brought some old favorites back into the spotlight for a closer look. (The Alfa Romeo Giulia, for example, debuted in June, but this was the first time most of us saw it.) Now that the dust has settled and we're all on flights back to the US, our editors cast their votes for their personal favorites from the Frankfurt show. These are the cars we truly loved seeing the most. But unlike other shows, there was no one runaway winner – all of the Top Five received positive praise from our team. We won't spoil the results, though. Scroll down to see what we liked most from this year's Frankfurt expo. 5th Place – MERCEDES-BENZ IAA CONCEPT View 12 Photos MIKE AUSTIN: The clean lines on this concept have me excited for a more elegant beauty to future Mercedes-Benz vehicles. Next to the Concept IAA, the lovely S-Class Coupe looks like an overstyled barge. DAVID GLUCKMAN: Yeah, the extendable rear is neat and all, but I'm more interested in the front-end styling of this one. It looks like the Tron version of a 300SL, in a good way. I'm hopeful it portends the future of Mercedes design. STEVEN EWING: I was super impressed when Mercedes said that, with the rear end extended, this concept has a drag coefficient of just 0.19. That's crazy aerodynamic. I'm not head-over-heels about the styling, but I think the lessons learned from this concept are really important, and will play a huge role in the future of Mercedes' products. 4th Place – ALFA ROMEO GIULIA View 15 Photos SEYTH MIERSMA: I can hardly express how in love with this car I am. The styling feels creative, modern, and evocative, without going over the top. The proposed performance is spectacular. And the Alfa badge speaks to a legacy of romantic motoring. DAVID GLUCKMAN: Pretty Italian car makes big promises and will probably deliver on about three quarters of them. I think that will still be enough for me. JEREMY KORZENIEWSKI: I'm really intrigued by the Giulia. It looks great, sounds awesome, and I'm expecting it to have a load more character than its German rivals. I hope I'm not disappointed. 3rd Place – JAGUAR F-PACE View 15 Photos GREG MIGLIORE: It's the first SUV for Jaguar, and I think they nailed the design, capability, and electronics. It's the right car at the right time.

Alfa Romeo Giulia Luggage Test: How big is the trunk?

The Alfa Romeo Giulia is a brilliant little sport sedan to drive, a true delight every time you get a chance to jump behind the wheel. But what might it be like on a road trip? Well, it's a sedan, so obviously you can bring some friends along, but the back seat certainly isn't the largest out there and neither is the trunk. To be clear, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. A bigger Giulia would probably be a worse Giulia to drive. One simply needs to be aware of the trade-off. According to the specs, the Giulia's trunk measures ... um, actually, they're not listed anywhere on the specs provided on the Stellantis media website. For any Giulia from 2024 to 2017. Let's go ahead and check the consumer website then. Wow, nothing there, either. OK then, thank goodness for the luggage test, then. Let's snap to it! OK, so here is the trunk. It is not big, but how might it compare to other sport sedans I've tested, including the Genesis G70 (10.5 cubic-feet), Cadillac CT4 (10.9) and BMW 3 Series (depends on model)? Let's find out.  As in every luggage test I do, I use two midsize roller suitcases that would need to be checked in at the airport (26 inches long, 16 wide, 11 deep), two roll-aboard suitcases that just barely fit in the overhead (24L x 15W x 10D), and one smaller roll-aboard that fits easily (23L x 15W x 10D). I also include my wife's fancy overnight bag just to spruce things up a bit (21L x 12W x 12D). There are two options here. On the left, the fancy bag on top of one of the medium black roller bags, plus the biggest bag (gray) and smallest roller (blue). Alternatively, I could fit the small blue and its bigger check-in sibling, plus the two medium-sized bags -- but the small blue one would be a big squished.  Obviously, as you can see here, there's lots of left over space. There's also two bags left out regardless of configuration. Why? There's just not a lot of height in this trunk, and there are things hanging down that hamper it further. Shown above are speakers can might catch on something, plus the fat structural crossmember running above the fold-down seat pass-through that prevents bags from sliding all the way back. The biggest hindrance, though, are these large seat pass-through pulls on the left and right side of the trunk. They got in the way when trying to stack bags on their bellies atop each other.

Form and function in fairly equal parts | 2018 Alfa Romeo Stelvio First Drive

Alfa Romeo, a brand synonymous with sports cars that combine beautiful Italian design with historically dodgy reliability, now makes a crossover. The Stelvio is named after what is quite possibly the best driving road in the world, and the automaker would have you believe that it is the most purely focused driver's ute in the world. To that end, the Stelvio boasts a perfect 50/50 front-to-rear weight distribution, a fast 12.0:1 steering ratio, and an all-wheel-drive system that's tuned to send 100 percent of the engine's power to the rear wheels whenever possible. All of those bits add up to an SUV that's genuinely fun to drive on winding roads. Think of the Stelvio as an Alfa Romeo Giulia with a suspension lift kit that puts you 2.5 inches higher off the tarmac. Yes, those stilts mean the crossed-over Alfa isn't quite as sharp as the Giulia, but the Stelvio isn't at all dimwitted. It's a true Alfa Romeo, in spirit and in execution, right down to its standard carbon-fiber driveshaft. The Stelvio shares its 111-inch wheelbase and its double-wishbone front and Alfa Link rear suspension systems with the Giulia. That's not to say that the Stelvio drives as well or looks as good as the Giulia. The crossover is 2 inches longer and 8.9 inches taller than the sedan from which it was born. We got the feeling that we were sitting on top of the car's chassis instead of within it, which is due entirely to the high seating position that American drivers are so fond of. And whereas the Giulia wears its sheetmetal like a slinky little black dress, the Stelvio's Scudetto front fascia and Trilobo air intakes are stretched over a much larger frame and its sides are sculpted in a more masculine way. Still, the Stelvio is an attractive beast, inside and out. It's unmistakably Italian, which is to say well-tailored with an impeccable form that influences but begrudgingly follows function. Leather seating surfaces are standard. From the driver's seat, the dashboard is dominated by two binnacles housing the tachometer and speedometer. In between is an LCD display that shows a bunch more relevant information. A second screen in an exaggerated widescreen format houses the bespoke infotainment system from Magneti Marelli. That LCD's unique shape makes it look smaller than the Stelvio's competitors, especially as its pinched height makes the backup camera image appear pretty small.