SUITED & BOOTED

With Audi, BMW and Mercedes losing their lustre in the compact sports saloon market, Alfa and Jaguar are vying for top honours. We pit Giulia Veloce against XE P300

- STUART GALLAGHER

I KNOW WHAT YOU'RE THINKING: where's the 3-series? The car BMW built to create and define the compact sports saloon sector. The benchmark in terms of driving dynamics, quality and, of course, sales. The 3-series is a phenomenon. Or rather it was. Its star hasn't faded as such, rather its position has been challenged, and not by the usual suspects. Audi Sport and Mercedes-AMG may square up to the M3, but further down the pecking order an A4 or C-class in nonperformance dress-up have struggled to impress, their go falling short of matching their show. Not so the offerings of Alfa Romeo and Jaguar.

The XE isn't long for this world and production is a little on/off depending on parts supply and where JLR needs those all-important chips to be installed (Range Rovers normally, because they generate more profit than a PPE supplier back in 2020). Yet it's a car that, since its debut in 2015, has demonstrated that the people of Bavaria aren't the only ones who know how to make a compact sports saloon. Twelve months after the Brits did it, Italy also proved it could take on the 3-series, although this time both at grassroots level with four-cylinder models and on the main stage with the Quadrifoglio (Jaguar left the fireworks to the limited-run Project 8, another gem but one that was only short-lived and frighteningly expensive).