2018 Alfa Romeo Stelvio | LMT Cars

LMT Cars:
If you’re looking to add a little Italian flair to your grocery run, the Stelvio is hot enough to melt your gelato. Under the hood is a 280-hp turbocharged 2.0-liter inline-four driving all four wheels through an eight-speed automatic; Alfa claims a zero-to-60-mph time of 5.4 seconds. Inside, you’ll find a handsome interior with leather seats and a 6.5- or 8.8-inch infotainment display. Automated emergency braking and adaptive cruise control are optional.
Tennessee’s Central Basin resembles the Italian Alps about as much as Kevin Bacon looks like actual bacon. But on our drive through the Volunteer State, the Alfa Romeo crossover named for the Continent’s iconic mountain pass transported us instead to a different European motoring mecca. Running southwest out of Nashville, the 444-mile Natchez Trace Parkway plows a narrow squiggle through a verdant forest and conjures up a sort of neo-Nürburgring. The way the manicured easement meets old-growth oak, the way the asphalt never runs straight, the way one blind corner feeds into another, it all evokes the holy Green Hell.

Mind the Lycra-clad cyclists, dispatch with the dawdling sightseers, and ignore the 40- and 50-mph speed limits of the Natchez Trace, and the Alfa Romeo Stelvio alights with verve. It steers with a steady linear effort. The brake pedal responds obediently to slight pressure modulation, and in general Alfa’s brake-by-wire system felt more natural and better sorted this time around than it has in Giulia sedans that we’ve driven. The Stelvio doesn’t drive small—it’s slightly longer than the Audi Q5, the BMW X3, and the Mercedes-Benz GLC-class—but there is a precision to the controls that invites you to use more road, to corner closer to trees that crowd the driving line, and to drift nearer the drainage ditch at the pavement’s edge. In this segment, only a Porsche Macan inspires more confidence.

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