Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrif oglio

FIRST DRIVE Alfa marks Quadrifoglio centenary by making its flagship saloon better to drive than ever

- Jordan Katsianis

Running costs 28.0mpg (official) £84 fill-up

Performance 0-62mph/top speed 3.9 seconds/191mph

THIS year a since Alfa Romeo's famous four-leaf clover, or Quadrifoglio, first appeared on one of its Formula One cars. While the emblem has only been used sporadically over the past 100 years, more recently it's featured on the wings of Alfa's Giulia and Stelvio models, marking out the top-tier, high-performance versions of their respective ranges.

As part of the centenary celebrations, Alfa has revealed updated versions of both Quadrifoglio cars, and it's the Giulia we're driving here. It features a few small but very important changes, which include a new fully mechanical limited-slip diff and a collection of suspension-geometry tweaks.

Under the carbon-fibre bonnet you'll still find Alfa's twin-turbocharged 2.9-litre V6 petrol engine, now producing 512bhp, up 9bhp on the old car. This is connected to the same eight-speed automatic gearbox, sending power exclusively to the rear wheels.