Reminded that the new GTA costs two-and-a-half times more than a 'standard' Quadrifoglio, there was some understandable hesitancy among PHers to board the Alfa bus last week, when we discussed all matters styling with the firm's head of design. That's reasonable. But as Klaus Busse pointed out, the GTA is very much about what's going on underneath; after all, that's where Alfa has invested most of the car's inflated bottom line. For insight on that we sought out an engineer's insight - one brought up watching Gabriele Tarquini barging his Alfa Romeo 155 to a British Touring Car Championship title in the nineties.
“Before the GTA project became official, the car was actually referred to internally as 'Il Mostro'", explains Fabio Migliavacca, the former Audi Sport race engineer and Lamborghini instructor, turned Alfa product marketing boss. “It started as a skunkworks car so it was never considered as a mass production model, it was always too expensive and too specific for that. So much so that the GTA is being built on its own production line that’s separate to even the Quadrifolglio, in a different way and at a different rate.”
That goes a long way to quantifying the differences between the 540hp GTA and its mass-produced, but still really rather exotic sibling. While the basic recipe is the same – Giorgio platform, front-mounted 2.9-litre V6, eight-speed ZF transmission – Migliavacca insists that every single part has been re-evaluated and re-honed for the GTA, a car not just been benchmarked against predictable machines like the M4 GTS and XE Project 8, but also the Porsche 911 GT3.
“This is a car that we have deliberately set up to be more nervous than the Quadrifoglio,” he continues, rather warming to the subject. “But in a positive manner, so that a professional driver could be delighted by this kind of chassis. We went this way as we wanted something really pointy and extreme in terms of response when you steer inside a corner, but still communicating to you what the car is doing around the racetrack. It’s still usable as a road car, but it is really effective on the circuit.”
Migliavacca reports that the GTA’s 50mm wider tracks – an almost incomparable increase in the world of road-going production cars – has been achieved partly thanks to the new monoblock wheels, which are wider than the QF’s. But also through the suspension characteristic angle, enabled by the use of model-specific springs, dampers and bushes. The changes bring the whole car closer to the ground, lowering the centre of gravity and altering the balance as a result.
“The wider setup reduces the roll of the body through corners, which, combined with suspension that is a little stiffer, makes the car really reactive,” adds Migliavacca. “We haven’t gone so far as to make the car undriveable on a bumpy road, though, as we don’t want a car that is jumping around.”
To that end, while Alfa uses race tracks including the Nurburgring to hone its chassis settings, Migliavacca confirms that local routes where the roads are less smooth also play a part in testing. Handily for the manufacturer (and us lot), the surface of its local test routes is said to bear more than a passing resemblance to British B-roads, so there's hope yet for the right sort compliance in the new state of tune. You'd like to think it was vital, given that the UK is expected to be one of the GTA’s most receptive markets.
Migliavacca says that while engineers are still finalising the suspension settings that will feature in the production car, the team is ultimately “working towards the car being stiffer on the front, so it’s lower a little more on the front than the back” to achieve its superior turn-in. The Giulia Quadrifoglio and even its taller, Stelvio-based sibling are both quick to respond to steering input, so Migliavacca says engineers haven’t needed to tweak the geometry of the front axle to achieve the GTA's objectives. Indeed, anyone who’s driven a QF will be aware of the factory-set negative front camber even at low speed, as the tyres scrub over the surface during manoeuvring. The payoff, of course, is tremendous front-end grip.
Only a small number of changes needed to be made to the QF’s twin-turbo V6, too, a motor already so racey that it vibrates at low revs like something plucked direct from motorsport. Migliavacca says this resonance will remain in the higher-spec GTA engine, as it’s a natural result of a highly-strung unit that loves to rev; the low speed operation is expected to remain largely the same as the normal QF as well: “engine torque will be kept the same to maintain the car’s good driveability”. The extra performance – illustrated by a 30hp higher peak output – arrives when the revs pile on, and is the result of retuned turbos, a freer-flowing exhaust system and new ECU settings. The powertrain is said to have a different character at speed and to be more vocal, too.
Like Alfa’s head of design, Migliavacca attributes much of the GTA’s added technical prowess to the company’s work with the Sauber F1 team. "Think about the Audi RS2 with Porsche motorsport [because] in a similar way, we’re working with Sauber engineers”. That’s a comparison we hardly need to highlight the significance of (although Matt Bird handily did in 2018) although it reiterates the firm's claim that it has created something very different - something that will only appeal to a very limited (and enthusiastic) audience.
Given Migliavacca’s background, you'd expect him to be pushing for a GTA racing variant - and you'd be right - but he concedes that, "the real potential in the racing world right now is made by TCR and GT4, which are categories that we can’it’s a sedan plus size car”. Migliavacca is “probably one of few” with an interest in exploring a race car, not least because Alfa Romeo’s partnership with Sauber in F1 is proving so fruitful. With Formula 1 getting the lion’s share of the motorsport budget, it's unlikely – although Migliavacca does reckon Alfa would be supportive of a privateer team using a GTA to make its own version. We’ll start a kitty.
For now, though, the focus is obviously on getting the road car to market. Development is back to full steam ahead following lockdown, something which has cost Alfa a bit of time so the project will probably run into 2021. Until then, customer interest is expected to constantly grow, with Migliavacca estimating that around 2,100 serious enquiries to purchase one of the 500 examples of GTA and GTAm models have already been made. Predictably, Alfa is having no trouble justifying that £153k price tag to its fans. We can't wait to find out for ourselves if Il Mostro lives up to its billing.
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