It's Giulia GTA vs Quadrifoglio in 1,036-HP Race Down the 1/4-Mile, Alfa Romeo Wins

The Alfa Romeo Giulia has been around for almost eight years now, as it replaced the slightly outdated 159. Back in the day, you could have gotten a 3.2-liter V6 inside your 159, and that was good enough for 256 hp and 237 lb-ft (322 Nm) of torque.

But if Alfa Romeo was ever going to take on the German luxury sedans, it needed to come up with a new solution. Matching the level of cars like the BMW 3 Series, Mercedes C Class and Audi A4 meant that things would have to go beyond just a new chassis and design. Alfa needed to bring some horsepower to the table.

The Quadrifoglio version would solve that problem, with a Ferrari-developed twin-turbo V6. That's right, this 2.9-liter engine is related to the V8 you'd find in a California T. So it's no surprise that it has an output of 503 hp and 443 lb-ft (600 Nm) of torque.

Couple that with the fact that all the power is going straight to the rear wheels and you get a very fun package indeed. But Alfa Romeo wasn't going to stop there. The Italians had returned to Formula 1 after staying out of the World Championship for more than three decades and wanted to share some of the racing experience with their customers as well.

You might remember that last year we featured Kimi Raikkonen driving a very special, limited-edition Giulia. Alfa Romeo had called the Finnish F1 legend to test their newest models: the GTA and the GTAm.

And these two were about to turn the heat up to 11 with 533 hp and less weight than the Quadrifoglio. The GTA and GTAm quickly sold out, even though they were more than twice as expensive as the standard sports version of the Giulia. So let's see what that translates to when comparing the two down the quarter-mile (402 meters).

The guys at CarWow just posted this video today, and they're testing the car on the same airfield we've seen plenty of times before. On the first run of the day, the Quadrifoglio is off to a better start and just barely wins it by the time it crosses the finish line.

But things quickly resume to normal, as the GTA asserts domination of both of the following runs. The outcome was obvious from the get-go, but it's interesting to see how you can sum up all the differences by just looking at the stopwatch. The GTA needed 11.8 seconds to complete the third run of the day, while the Quadrifoglio was 0.6 seconds slower. As you'd expect, that difference is going to be much bigger if you'd compare the two cars going around a racetrack.

But the straight-line performance test is much easier to carry out and is less dependent on the human factor overall. The rolling race provides the same outcome, as both cars exceed 127 mph (204 kph) by the time they cross the half-mile (804 meters) finish line. The only place where we expected more out of the limited-edition Giulia was the braking test.

But the small gap may be due to a host of other reasons that are not necessarily related to the car. Of course, there's the more affordable do-it-yourself alternative to the whole thing. Upgrading the turbos, exhaust system, cooling and mapping might get you up to over 650 hp and you can always work on weight reduction should you feel the need for a lighter car. The result won't be as exclusive and refined as the GTA, but it will be considerably cheaper.