2016 Alfa Romeo Giulia 2.2d 180 Super first drive

The Alfa Romeo Giulia's arrival in the UK, no matter how prolonged the build-up, feels like a watershed moment. For now, the steering wheel remains on the wrong side, but very soon that will change and the nation’s compact exec buyers will have the first option of a proper rear-drive Alfa Romeo since the Alfa 75 of the mid-1980s - coincidentally the last car launched by the firm before Fiat assumed control.  Its successors were uniformly front-wheel drive, uniformly pretty and uniformly undeserving of the model cull that left the Alfa 159 without a successor in 2011. The Giulia, of course, remedies that with not only an expensively developed longitudinal-engined, rear-drive platform (dubbed, rather exquisitely, Giorgio), but also a raft of new engines including the crucial addition of an all-aluminum 2.2-litre MultiJet II four-cylinder diesel unit.

It is available in two formats - 148bhp and 178bhp - and while the lesser model is inevitably cheaper, it is the higher-powered version tested here that suggests itself as a genuine threat to the segment running order. With efficiency at a claimed 67.3mpg and 109g/km; torque at 332lb ft and the national limit dealt with in less than 7.0sec, the Giulia is (for now) technically superior to the equivalent BMW 3 Series, Jaguar XE and Audi A4 across the board.

Neither diesel lump can be had in entry-level format (the £29,180 plain Giulia model is offered only with the 197bhp 2.0-litre petrol motor); making the mid-range Super trim the likely sweet spot. The 177bhp variant starts from £31,950 and comes with sat nav, a DAB radio, 17in alloy wheels, rear parking sensors, dual-zone climate control and cruise control as standard. 

We've previously reported a mixed bag when inspecting the Giulia's interior, and that sentiment continues to ring true. Outwardly, it is rather splendid. Anyone half expecting an Italian sense of style to inform the Alfa's cabin ought to be delighted: the dashboard architecture has clearly been arranged with one eye fixed on what might look beautiful - a useful contrast to the purely functional prettiness its northern European rivals achieve. 

Were its only requirement to be that you sit and admire it like a Botticelli fresco, then the Giulia would be a triumph. Sadly, it's when the process of driving demands that you engage with your surroundings that the niggles surface like rising damp. Some are merely questionable fit and finish; others, more seriously, are functional - like the seemingly low-rent infotainment screen or the unswitchable stability control or the weirdly unhelpful wiper settings.