Alfa Romeo GT Q2 : GT ARRIVES ON Q

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Alfa Romeo has worked hard to civilise the handling of its powerful 150bhp diesel GT coupe. Andy Enright assesses the results

Perhaps the public demand for the launch of the Brera coupe design study was just too strong to resist but the upshot of a productionised Brera has been to render the pretty GT coupe apparently superfluous. Why bother with the older model? It would appear to be yesterday's news, especially in such a fickle market. The reality is a little more complicated. Yes, both the Brera and the GT use a lot of the same engineering and the newer car has hogged the headlines but get the two cars side by side and an uneasy truth dawns. The GT is the prettier car. Maybe not so striking, it's true, but it's a more cohesive shape and, thanks to this Q2 model, it might also be the driver's pick too.

Drivers know that torque can easily corrupt. Especially if there's a lot of it and it's being directed to a pair of front wheels, as is the case in this 150 or 170bhp diesel GT. Granted, 150bhp doesn't sound an unmanageable power output but again we come back to that torque figure. Even in 150bhp guise, this car generates some 225lb/ft of torque, which is about what a performance coupe like a Honda NSX or a Porsche Cayman is being asked to put through its rear wheels. When a car accelerates from a standstill, the weight transfer is such that it squats on its rear wheels, leaving the front pair scrabbling. Suddenly, you realise the challenges facing the manufacturers of muscular front wheel drive models. Alfa thinks it has come up with a solution with Q2 technology. One of the most difficult traits to eradicate in a car of this type is torque steer. This occurs when a powerful front wheel drive car is asked to deploy all that grunt, and the resultant effect is the car `weaving' its way up the road as first one wheel, then the other achieves grip. It's hardly elegant, and the tugging steering wheel can be unsettling if you're not quite sure what's happening. Radical redesigns of some cars' suspension systems to equalise the lengths of the half-shafts supplying drive to each wheel can be a solution but this isn't a fix that can be applied to a model halfway through its life. Alfa Romeo has instead opted for the best available remedial solution for the GT JTDm Q2, the installation of a Torsen limited-slip differential. This torque-sensing differential works by limiting the amount of slip to one wheel. In simple terms, it directs more drive to whichever wheel is moving slower, the inference being that the slower wheel has grip and the quicker wheel has lost it and is spinning freely. The effect is that there's a cleaner, more natural feel during cornering. Drive the old GT Multijet 150 hard through a corner and as soon as the turbocharger started reaching peak torque, it would overwhelm the front wheels and power would be directed to the inside front wheel which would then just spin impotently in a haze of tyre smoke. Most frustrating.

"The GT Q2 is capable and has an uncommonly engaging character"

With the Q2 system, the outside front wheel gets the lion's share of the torque split and uses it to good effect, driving the GT purposefully through the bend with less throttle modulation or sawing at the wheel to try to get meaningful drive back. It always seemed a shame that such a brilliant engine created such handling issues but thankfully that's behind Alfa now and the engine's still a cracker. The Multijet system takes the idea of pilot injection - squirting a small amount of fuel into the cylinder to `prime' the combustion chamber for the main ignition process - and refines it still further. In this instance, the main injection is divided into a series of smaller injections, allowing smoother, more gradual combustion that utilises fuel more efficiently. The electronic control units have to be astonishingly precise to achieve this. Whereas before the time lag between injections was a relatively yawning 1,500 microseconds, the response time has been slashed by a factor of 10. A variable geometry turbocharger and a high pressure direct injection system make the 150 or 170bhp outputs possible but the key is a torque output that makes the GT Q2 feel gutsier than the old 3.2-litre V6 petrol model. You'll believe that too when you drive the car. Fire it up and the engine settles into an unobtrusive background thrum that never threatens to rattle the expensively moulded dashboard. Yes, you can tell its sups from the black pump, but it's hardly what you'd describe as coarse. On the move the engine remains pleasantly muted without the whistles and bellows of many powerful turbodiesel cars. Between 1,750 and 3,250rpm, there's a huge shove in the back, the elastic power delivery catapulting the Alfa down the road in a deliciously addictive manner. Even in sixth gear, the GT Q2 will (in 150bhp guise) dispatch the 50-75mph increment in just 7.9 seconds. From rest, it will accelerate to 60mph in 8.8 seconds and run on to a top speed of 129mph. Average fuel economy is pegged at 47.9mpg and emissions amount to a mere 157g/km. In Q2 form, there's a choice of either 150 or 170bhp engines, as we've said, and either standard, Cloverleaf or Lusso trim levels. Most buyers will opt for the Cloverleaf model, mainly because it's better vale, has more equipment and offers the more powerful 170bhp engine. Prices start at £20,980. As a result, you should be able to secure one of these for comfortably less than you'd pay for something like a well-specced 200bhp Golf GTI. But then you will have to make do with `just' 150 or 170bhp, although the powerplant is certainly modern enough. The styling house Bertone were responsible for most of the design and the GT was originally pencilled in to be assembled at their Turin plant where spare capacity had been freed up by the demise of the Fiat Punto Cabriolet. After many beans were counted, however, Alfa Romeo thanked Bertone very much for their penmanship and decided to build the GT alongside the 147 at their Pomigliano d'Arco plant just outside Naples. Given the solid feel of latest generation 147s, that's perhaps no bad thing and the first impression one gets dropping into the driver's seat of the GT is of decent build quality. The GT is the slow grower of the Alfa Romeo range and the Q2 model shows that it's more than just a pretty face. It'll probably need a little more than a trick diff to worm its way into the public eye though.

Facts At A Glance
CAR: Alfa Romeo GT Q2
PRICE: £20,980-£24,105 - on the road
INSURANCE GROUP: 15
CO2 EMISSIONS: 165g/km
PERFORMANCE: 0-60mph 9.8s Max Speed 130 mph
FUEL CONSUMPTION: (combined) 45.6mpg
STANDARD SAFETY FEATURES: Twin front, side and curtain airbags, ABS
WILL IT FIT IN YOUR GARAGE?: Length/Width/Height, 4489/1763/1365mm 9th July 2008