Alfa Romeo's ultimate Giulia is certainly not cheap

Wednesday, 5 May 2021

The Alfa Romeo Giulia GTA is the ultimate four-door from the Italian brand.

Alfa Romeo has priced the ultimate Giulia, the GTA and its lightweight sib, the GTAm. Fair warning: they aren’t cheap.

Alfa Romeo Australia confirmed the going price of the high-performance twins will be AUD$268,000 and AUD$288,000 plus on-road costs respectively, an increase of $129,050 and $149,050 over the previous range-topper, the Giulia Quadrifoglio.

Over in Oz, the Quadrifoglio costs roughly the same as it does here ($139,990), which means you could reasonably assume the GTA and GTAm would also set Kiwi buyers back nearly $300k for the m-suffixed car.

The most potent Alfa Romeo Giulia has been priced - and it ain't cheap.

That’s well above what rivals BMW, Audi and Mercedes-Benz ask for their go-fast four-doors – the new M3 Competition starts at $168,900, the soon-to-be-replaced C 63 S Sedan asks $175,899 and the Audi RS 5 Sportback goes for $157,900.

The Giulia GTA gets more carbon fibre, more aero and more power.

Of course, those other cars don’t have quite the same allure as a GTA-badged Alfa, but it’s hard to justify spending so much more on it.

As for specs, the Giulia GTA uses the same 2.9-litre twin-turbo V6 as in the Quadrifoglio but tuned up to 402kW, with peak torque remaining at 600Nm.

Meanwhile, the GTAm is ready for the track with an FIA-spec half roll cage, race seats and six-point Sabelt harnesses

The power is sent rearward via an eight-speed automatic transmission while a new Akrapovic exhaust system should add some extra theatre to the drive.

More performance comes through a weight-loss programme, achieved via a healthy dosage of carbon fibre parts. There’s a CF roof, front bumper, bonnet, driveshaft, sports seats and wheel arches, which all contribute to a 100kg drop in kerb weight, to 1485kg.

There’s also uprated suspension, wider tracks and more aerodynamics (as you’ve probably noticed by now).

The hardcore GTAm version adds a fire extinguisher, FIA-spec half roll cage, race seats and six-point Sabelt harnesses. It also deletes the rear seats and swaps the side and rear glass windows for polycarbonate versions.

Interested? Bad news. Last we checked, Alfa Romeo New Zealand wasn’t planning on bringing any GTA or GTAm models to our roads. Australia is only getting 18, and they’re all spoken for.