A Used Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio Is A £30k Super Saloon Steal

When the Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio launched back in 2016, it’s fair to say there was a little apprehension. After all, we’d had years of high-performance Alfas that were dynamic messes with handling that could never live up to their gorgeous styling and fizzy engines.

Things at least looked a little better for the Giulia from the outset. It was Alfa’s first rear-wheel drive saloon in nearly 25 years and had a brand new 2.9-litre twin-turbocharged V6 which, although the two companies have never admitted a link, happened to share a whole load of characteristics with the V8 from the Ferrari California T. It even had its chassis signed off by the same engineer who’d overseen the mesmerising Ferrari 458 Speciale.

Thankfully, all these good signs were indeed pointing in the right direction, and the Giulia Quadrifoglio was met with instant praise when it launched thanks to its charismatic V6 and supple, agile rear-drive chassis.

During the eight years it’s been on sale, the Quad’s two biggest rivals, the BMW M3 and Mercedes-AMG C63 have undergone some major generational shifts: the M3 has gotten heavier and become - let’s not mince our words here - fugly. The C63, meanwhile, has ditched its characterful V8 for a deeply unpopular four-cylinder hybrid setup.

The Italian car – quite probably as a result of Alfa’s more limited resources next to the German giants – has clung on to the same recipe for its whole life: twin-turbo V6, rear-wheel drive, eight-speed auto. As a result, it’s become an ever more appealing option for those seeking an old-school super saloon experience, helped along the way by a steady programme of updates.

It’s just received its latest and probably last update, as Alfa has confirmed that an electric successor is on the way in 2026. We’ve driven the new version and it’s really rather good, but the price has now swollen to £78,195 before options.

It’s as good a time as any, then, to take a look at the used market and at how temptingly priced early Quadrifoglios are. We’ve found one in a bit of a sleeper spec: black with silver 19-inch wheels, rather than the commonly seen ‘look-at-me’ spec of Rosso Etna. From a distance, you could almost mistake it for a 2.2-litre diesel.

Of course, once you got close, you’d notice the quad pipes, carbon lip spoiler and whacking great rear diffuser, all of which mark it out as the Quadrifoglio. In this early form, that means 503bhp, a zero to 62mph sprint of 3.9 seconds, and an unrestricted top speed of 191mph.

A 2017 car on a 67 plate, it’s covered 72,700 miles, which is a chunk higher than other similarly-priced Quads, but we’ve chosen to highlight it because of how well looked after it’s been. It’s had one owner its whole life, during which it’s been serviced on the dot by Alfa main dealers and, most recently, the independent specialist that’s now selling it.

The bodywork and interior are largely unblemished. Its three MOTs have only thrown up one single advisory – the weirdly emphatic “tyre pressure light on!!” in 2020. Early Giulias had their share of electrical gremlins (quelle surprise), but have generally proven much more robust cars than Alfas of old, especially with this kind of providence.

The asking price? A fiver under £30k. It’s not bargain basement, then, and you can certainly find F80 M3s and V8 C63s for similar money. On the other hand, it’s almost £50k less than a brand new Quadrifoglio – a heck of a saving when you’re only really sacrificing 10 horsepower and some chassis hardware tweaks.

Cars like this simply won’t be around for much longer, and in the age of the £40k-plus hot hatch, a used buy like this starts to look very appealing indeed.