► Month 3 with the Alfa Romeo Stelvio
► We take it to meet some distant relatives
► Read month 2 here
When you’ve done thousands of miles in a car and not seen another the same, you can start to yearn for the company of like-minded souls. Lately I’ve been feeling the need to spend some time with people who absolutely understand why you might pick the Alfa Romeo Stelvio over its more rounded Porsche rival. And I found hundreds of them at this year’s Italian Car Day at Brooklands.
First run in 1986 and this year celebrating three decades at what’s left of the world’s first banked race circuit, Auto Italia magazine’s annual show is the big one as far as UK-based Italian car fans are concerned. Big enough to warrant taking the Stelvio on a 500-mile, eight-hour round trip from my home.
That’s a decent amount of wheel time, but gluttonous appetite for fuel aside, the Quadrifoglio makes a good long-distance cruiser, and rides far better at 80mph than it does at 20. Not so good is the amount of wind whistle around the door glass, and the relative position of wheel and pedals gives new life to the long-arms, short-legs trope about Italian cars and their driving positions.
But as soon as we drop down between a bank of trees and enter the part of Brooklands still home to the original museum (rather than the part that’s now Mercedes-Benz World), clocking a bright white Lamborghini Countach as we do, those gripes melt away like Alfasud sills in winter (hey, we’re among friends here).
Looking like a giant guinea pig in a Celtic tracksuit and packing a 513bhp engine that can brag of Ferrari family connections, the Stelvio is used to attracting plenty of attention in my small seaside town. But even the Quadrifoglio has its work cut out commanding eyeballs at Brooklands, where battalions of cars arranged by marque pack out the Old Finishing Straight.
There are more Ferraris than you’d see in Maranello. In fact, the place is awash with so many supercars and exotic GTs that you could spend days here if you gave every one the attention it deserves. Instead, you have to ration your ogling, trying to take everything in but maybe lingering a little longer on the Maserati Bora, Fiat Dino or Lamborghini Espada that you know you might not see again for years – or ever, in the case of the super-rare De Tomaso Longchamp and Fiat Samantha coupe.
What really makes this show a winner is the variety of metal on offer, much of it from the other end of the spectrum. When was the last time you saw a Lancia Gamma, or even a humble Mk1 Fiat Punto, which I can’t help thinking looks incredibly fresh for its 31 years.
Naturally, we gravitated towards our own kind, finding a parking space on a patch of grass devoted to the Alfa Romeo owners’ club, which turns 60 this year. Far from fading away in the internet age, interest is booming, and membership is now past 4000, club manager Nick Wright tells us. That must have made it hard to pick the couple of dozen cars for this year’s display, but the line-up does a good job of telling Alfa’s post-war story.
A stunning 1950s Giulietta Spider exits when it looks like the weather might turn, but Tony Reade’s incredible Montreal survivor isn’t about to wimp out. He’s driven it all over Europe and lets me slip behind the wheel and take a peek at one of the greatest instrument set-ups of all time – and find a good reason never to moan about the Stelvio’s driving position ever again.
The Quadrifoglio will have gone back to Alfa long before next year’s Italian Car Day rolls around, but I have a feeling I’ll be making the trip anyway. In the meantime, I’m going to send out an olive branch to my young neighbour down the street. I notice he’s recently traded his Mito for a Giulietta and I know he’d understand exactly why you’d pick the QV over a Macan Turbo.
Logbook – Alfa Romeo Stelvio Quadrifoglio (month 3)
Price: £87,195 (£90,745 as tested)
Performance: 2891cc V6, 513bhp, 3.8 sec 0-62mph, 177mph top speed
Efficiency: 23.9mpg (official), 20.2mpg (tested), 267g/km CO₂
Energy cost: 34.0p per mile
Miles this month: 1539
Total miles: 7749