Alfa Romeo Stelvio Quadrifoglio review

It’s a good and bad thing to be ‘showing your age’ as a car interior in 2024. The positives are there far all to see – and touch: buttons! Actual, real-life, safe-to-operate-while-driving buttons! The Stelvio doesn’t hide useful functions like heater controls, driving modes and driver assistance gubbins in its bijou eight-inch touchscreen (which also offers clickwheel interactivity) and is so much the better for it. There’s not a single touch-sensitive button on its gorgeous steering wheel either, instantly making every current Mercedes look idiotic.

There’s a ‘but’ coming here…

While the Stelvio gets this fundamental absolutely spot on, it snatches defeat from the jaws of victory in another key area. The driving position is simply wrong – the seat doesn’t go especially low (fine, it’s an SUV) but the steering wheel reach adjustment doesn’t go high or far out enough to compensate.

Sure, it’s an old car but this is a problem most performance car makers outside of Italy realised was unacceptable in the 1990s. The SUV Stelvio shares its platform with the Giulia which has a perfect driving position, so it’s difficult to understand how Alfa could’ve overlooked this element during the car’s parallel development.

Any other gripes?

Minor switchgear like the stalks and door-based switchgear are pure brittle 1990s Fiat Punto spec rubbish, and Alfa’s new un-glossy carbon fibre trim looks like some sort of exfoliating gadget you’d give your Dad as a stocking filler to grind down his bunions.

On the plus side, space is plentiful in the back and the boot is commodious, although the raked rear window and phat pillars mean visibility is poor. “Aha, but we have fitted a camera,” says Alfa. “Yes, but it has the resolution of an early 2000s webcam,” says us.