Think of a couplet to describe Alfa Romeo. Sexy and Italian, beautiful and characterful - both these would probably feature in your list. Brilliant handling and mind-altering chassis? Unlikely. Since a positive start with the Alfasud of the early Seventies, front-driven Alfas have rarely had the chassis to back up their looks. Too much power fed through the front wheels meant that Alfas often lacked the sporting cred of, say, a BMW.
alfa romeo Which is why Alfa is launching Q2. This is an optional limited-slip front diff that controls where the torque is sent when cornering. The problem that front-wheel-drive cars always face is that, under load in a corner, the inside front wheel goes light and wants to spin. With a normal diff, power is sent equally to both sides, which means your wheel could keep on spinning away.
With Q2, the front diff sends propulsion to the wheel with more traction. It’s a mechanical ‘Torsen’ system that relies on gears to transfer the torque. In theory, this should mean you can steer a tighter line, because the nose resists washing out around the corner.
alfa romeo And all credit to Alfa, because in the GT and 147 (the other car to benefit from this so far), this seems to have worked. So well, in fact, that you rarely need traction control. There’s loads of front-end grip through corners, even wet ones, and you get much less understeer. You can even feel the line tightening as you apply more power.
It reminds me of those trick diffs you get in Imprezas or Evos - more right foot means more traction. Great. Except here the application is gentler and you don’t get any of the sudden lurching that the Japanese machines generate when you press on.
However, it’s worth noting that Alfa execs aren’t stupid and they launched Q2 at their own test track, which means smooth tarmac and none of the camber drop-off you get at the side of British roads. Q2 needs to be tested back in Blighty to see whether it really works.
alfa romeo It would be nice, too, to really test it with some of Alfa’s more powerful cars too, like the 147 GTA or V6 GT. The trouble is, Alfa insists it’s tested Q2 on these cars and the diff still isn’t enough to stop the lack-of-traction issues they have. They’ll need a full-on four-wheel-drive set-up similar to the 159 Q4, which Alfa has been testing on prototypes.
Q2 will be rolled out across other models in time, but for the moment it’s limited to the 150bhp diesel GT and 147. Which is a shame, because other models could do with it more. Only then will driving an Alfa start to feel as good as looking at it.
