Alfa Romeo Stelvio 2018 debuts

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ALFA Romeo, let's do a little history.
The brand was born in Italy in the first decade of the 20th century, specifically in 1910, the company founded in Milan by the industrialist Alexandre Darracq, was a car producing company named Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili and as the name was too long, the people he began to refer to her as ALPHA Among the investors was an industrialist and financier named Nicola Romeo, a skilled engineer who over the years becomes powerful within the Anonima Lombarda, in 1915 the engineer Romeo modifies the factory facilities of A.L.F.A. towards the production of war material. After the First World War, the facilities of A.L.F.A. They even served to make homemade cooking pots, and in 1920 Romeo, the strong man of the company, decided to merge the company - which he had been running for five years - with another of his companies called Società Anonima Ing.Nicola Romeo and thus create ALFA Romeo SpA company dedicated exclusively to the production of automobiles.

In the second half of the eighties, ALFA Romeo became part of the FIAT Group conglomerate, in the first years of the 21st Century FIAT and all its subsidiaries -except Ferrari- are absorbed by a strange commercial agreement with General Motors, said agreement it lasts some years, and after dissolving, FIAT obtains a good amount of cash flow, and begins to reinvent itself, this evolution leads the Italian conglomerate to buy in 2014 the entire Chrysler Group LLC to form the company FCA (FIAT Chrysler Automobiles, for its acronym in English)

As a cultural fact ALFA Romeo has won two world titles in Formula 1, in 1950 with Guiseppe Farina aboard a 158 Afetta and in 1951 with Juan Manuel Fangio behind the wheel of a 159 Alfetta

 

The shield

Before talking about the new ALFA Romeo SUV we also know a little about the conformation of its coat of arms and the grill emblematic elements present in the brand since it presents enigmas of the Italian heraldry, like the flag of Milan, a red cross, about a white background, at the other end we see "il biscone" a snake devouring a man, that is the coat of arms of the Visconti family, rooted in that Italian city since the time of the crusades.

The iconic grill
The Scudetto was first seen in the Alfa Romeo Freccia d'Oro of 1947 and since then the inverted isosceles triangle is present in each and every one of the ALFA Romeo models, whether in the days of FIAT, General Motors or FCA.

Alfa Romeo Stelvio
It is the first SUV of the Milanese brand, and its conceptualization took many years, since in the distant 2003 the concept called Kamal was presented at the Geneva Motor Show, just in those years was when the FIAT debacle came - General Motors then the An SUV project was kept in a drawer.


 

We had to wait until the 2016 edition of the Los Angeles Auto Show to see the Alfa Romeo Stelvio, which was presented as model 2018, so we had to wait some more time to get to know it.

The Stelvio is built on the platform called internally as Giorgio, which also gives structure to the Gulia, which as you remember we had to test in its rabid version in our special Best of Autocosm of 2017

To the domestic market comes the Ti version, which is the intermediate, the Sport versions (L4 2.0 liters of 280 Hp) that we could consider the input and the top of the range, Stelvio QV (Quadrifoglio Verde V6 2.9 L Biturbo 509 Hp ) will arrive in the fourth quarter of 2018.


 

The dimensions are:
4,687 mm for the total length, a width of 1,903 mm, the height is 1,648 mm and finally the wheelbase is 2,818 mm, the weight is 1,660 kilos.

Driving the Stelvio on an interesting mountain road
The response of the turbo engine is good, and the fear that we always have turbo engines, was present, one of the objective criticism is the TurboLag, which gives us those seconds of overwhelm and anguish when we want to make an untimely overshoot, there will be to try it in the city.

Alfa Romeo Stelvio equips a configurable Active Suspension where you can choose the type of driving through the system of selection of driving modes called Alfa DNA, with three modes: Dynamic, for an agile and sporty handling, Natural, with the perfect balance for daily driving and Advance Efficiency, which modifies the calibration for lower fuel consumption.

Thanks to the interaction with the Chassis Domain Control system, the Alfa DNA system instantly adapts the vehicle's behavior to the selected driving mode. The Chassis Domain Control (CDC) is the "brain" of the vehicle and coordinates all active systems available using dynamic models of predictive type to offer a safer driving.

During the test we submitted to Stelvio many changes in altitude and different surfaces and left us with a good taste, very good quality of assembly, and few interior noises, and since we mentioned the interiors, let's talk a little about them.


 

As we already mentioned, the Ti version is the intermediate one, and the client who pays $ 1,350,000 pesos will not be disappointed in the interior luxury category, since you will find good finishes and first quality materials, skins and rugs at the height, with a good audio equipment formed by Harman / Kardon and with 14 speakers, the infotainment system is controlled by an 8.8 inch touch screen and is compatible with Apple Car Play and Android Auto systems.

Step of Stelvio
Last but not least, let's analyze the name of this SUV built at the Cassino plant in Italy. The name of this vehicle honors the famous Stelvio Pass, or in its original language: Paso Delo Stelvio, a 24km road at 2,785 meters above sea level, which climbs the eastern Alps, given its inclination , this road has straights that are interconnected with 75 curves, and 47 of them are 180 degrees, and today it is used basically in the summer, for the favorable climate for cycling competitions like the Giro to Italy, or motorcycle ascents, without forgetting from one or another adventurous motorist who wants to travel in record time.
 

Stelvio Pass had a preponderant military importance towards the beginning of the twentieth century, when that area belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which had a border with the Kingdom of Italy, in 1919 with the dismemberment of the Empire the area was held by Italy.

Due to its difficulty due to the complexity of the line, the inclination and the necessary power to achieve its ascent, Alfa Romeo decided to baptize the first vehicle of the "Deportivo Utilitario" character with the name of Stelvio.

We will have the opportunity to make a more detailed assessment of this Alfa Romeo SUV, whose main competitors are: Porsche Macan GTS and Jaguar E Pace in its top version