The Alfa Romeo Giulia is the Motor Trend 2018 Car of the Year, which is one of the auto industry's most prestigious awards.
Each year for the past seven decades, Motor Trend has chosen one car to represent the most exquisite combination of engineering, design, performance, efficiency, safety, and value.
This year, for the 70th annual edition, Motor Trends took 26 vehicle models into consideration for the award, with 46 variants. The Alfa Romeo Julia emerged as the winner, bringing unprecedented craftsmanship, technology, and performance, to redefine the high-end mid-size sedan.
Motor Trend's 2018 Car Of The Year
The Alfa Romeo Giulia is luxurious, sporty, and powerful, boasting Italian style and craftsmanship for a premium experience all around. It features a four-cylinder, two-liter motor with twin turbochargers, ramping up 280 horsepower. According to Motor Trend, the car is simply a delight to drive.
"Motor Trend's judges agreed that the Alfa Romeo Giulia is the new ultimate driving machine," said Ed Loh, Editor-in-Chief at Motor Trend. "Alfa Romeo developed a car that is perhaps the finest handling sedan on the market."
"We are honored to be the first Italian brand to ever receive this prestigious award and we're excited for the future of Alfa Romeo here in North America and abroad," said Reid Bigland, head of Alfa Romeo.
Motor Trend Car Of The Year Program
The Car of the Year program took into account all 2017 vehicles, whether they were significantly upgraded or built new from the ground up. The cars go through an extensive range of tests and this year, Motor Trend had eight finalists before narrowing it down to select the Alfa Romeo Julia as the 2018 Car of the Year.
The Ford F-150 pickup also won the distinction of Truck of the Year while the Honda CR-V emerged as SUV of the year. The Car of the Year award, however, is the biggest and most prestigious one, and Motor Sport feels the Alfa Romeo Giulia has fully earned it.
The Alfa Romeo Giulia has yet to make its mark on the premium auto market in the United States, but this award should go a long way toward the brand's popularity and heritage.
A Motor Trend road test editor, Chris Walton, said that the Alfa Romeo Giulia fills the spot left by BMW in the segment, although a BMW 3 Series "never rode this well or cornered with such poise and precision simultaneously."
Other strong contenders for the Car of the Year award were the Tesla Model 3, the Kia Stinger, and the Honda Accord, but the Alfa Romeo Giulia outperformed all of them.
