Stunning Alfa Romeo Giulia GTAm for sale
If the Giulia Quadrifoglio was a statement of intent, the GTAm was a virtual broadside
Alfa Romeo has always been a master of making beautiful cars go like stink. Oh, and they usually sound pretty good too. It has, however, historically struggled with some of the finer details, like funnelling lots of power through the front wheels without ripping through a set of tyres or forgetting about suspension geometry altogether. The ingredients for greatness have always been there, it just never always came together.
That was until the Giulia came along. Or more specifically, the Giulia Quadrifoglio. Comfortably the most convincing rival to the BMW M3 and Mercedes-AMG C63 in, well, ever, courtesy of a 510hp 2.9-litre V6 co-developed by Ferrari and a superb chassis to go with it. Not to mention utterly gorgeous looks and an equally sublime exhaust note emitted from four outlets at the rear. It was always meant to be a statement of intent; proving that Alfa Romeo could live up to its legacy as a world-class performance brand with the right funding and support, which the Giulia Quadrifoglio delivered. It's fair to say it caught everyone by surprise, as did the radical GTAm variant a few years later.
Talk about nailing the details. The GTAm could have easily been a Giulia Quad with a grippier tyres, a bit more poke from the engine and a fruiter exhaust. However, what we actually got was a DTM car masquerading as a four-door saloon. Gone are the rear seats and in their place are two cutouts for you and a friend to store your racing helmets. A half-roll cage occupies most of the rear cabin, mounted to which are the harnesses for the carbon-backed bucket seats up front. Factor in the polycarbonate rear windows and Quadrioglio wing stickers – not badges – and the GTAm weighs in 100kg lighter than the standard Quad.
The multitude of carbon exterior bits also contribute to an impressive level of weight saving. New front and rear bumpers, along with achingly cool carbon wheel arch extensions and massive rear wing, help generate an additional 300kg of downforce over the Quad. New dampers, bushes and springs were fitted to match the considerably lighter platform, while 390mm carbon ceramic brakes drastically improved stopping power. And if that wasn’t enough, Alfa decided to overhaul the engine with lightweight components and a map tweak, unlocking 30hp in the process and lowering the car’s 0-62mph time to just 3.8 seconds.
For a company that has historically struggled to refine a car on a molecular level in the way the Germans have perfected, the GTAm was revelatory. You only need to watch Sam’s review to see what Alfa Romeo is capable of when its engineers are given the time and budget to deliver a proper driver’s machine, and it’s all the more disappointing that a two-door model built on the same platform was dropped to make way for SUVs and/or EVs. Urgh.
Obviously, we’re talking about a very expensive car here. While there are some bargain Giulia Quadrifoglios out there for circa £35,000, this GTAm will set you back a fiver shy of £200,000. But it’s exceptionally rare. It’s estimated that half the 500-strong GTA run were upgraded to hardcore GTAm spec, 19 of which were delivered to the UK (according to the vendor). A lot of money for a car with useless rear doors, sure, yet this is comfortably the most impressive piece of engineering to come from Alfa in many years. There’s life in the old dog yet.
This looks really compromised, especially with the whole bodge engineering back doors no seats stuff.... Only Alfa would think this was an elegant solution...
But, intrigued which cars fall into the "So many better cars to spend that sort of money on"?
This looks really compromised, especially with the whole bodge engineering back doors no seats stuff.... Only Alfa would think this was an elegant solution...
But, intrigued which cars fall into the "So many better cars to spend that sort of money on"?
It's 50K more than an M5CS which is already very expensive.
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